TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 59

[Tobie Shapiro]

November 14, 2000000006


Dearest Clan,

	You will tell me if this is getting boring, won't you?  I 
keep thinking I've gotten it all out of my system, and there's 
nothing more to write.  Then several things come to my mind and I'm 
off and writing again.  I write in waiting rooms.  I write in bed.  I 
write sitting, waiting for a prescription at the pharmacy.  I write 
at concerts.  I write waiting for my shrink to call me in.  I write 
while Meyshe is having his session with his shrink.  And while Feyna 
is in seeing hers.  I write in coffee houses (not *Bucks, but Peet's) 
In fact, I routinely show up half an hour early for dentists, 
doctors, shrinks, my divorce support group, just so I can get some 
writing done.  I haven't yet touched on many eras of my life, and I 
guess I'll get around to it.  I just don't want to alarm anyone. 
I've made some big mistakes, embarrassing mistakes.  You've read 
about some of them, and no one wrote to me to tell me I was an idiot. 
Maybe you're all too nice.  Or maybe we're all idiots.  That's my 
vote.  With a nod to Nancylee@, I vote that we're all idiots.

Another idiotic mistake.


 
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Romance takes a nose dive

	The place to meet men is at art gallery openings.  I'd heard 
this many times.  Supposedly, while you are standing in front of some 
incomprehensible piece of art by a new incomprehensible artist, an 
eligible, decent, intelligent, cultured man will be standing next to 
you.  You will strike up a conversation about the meaning of the 
piece and its place in art history, and then you'll be off.  You 
trade phone numbers, meet over coffee, get to know each other, and 
pretty soon, you're an item.  He lives off his formidable investments 
and has a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in anthropology.  He hobnobs with 
artists, writers of published books, movers and shakers.  He gets 
invited to all the important events.  You fall in love, get to know 
his crowd.  His crowd loves you, takes great interest in your talent. 
Pretty soon, you're publishing your works because of all the 
connections, and galleries are showing your work because of all the 
connections, and your music is being discussed in upper circles, 
again, because of those undeniable connections, and you're on your 
way.  That's how it happens, folks.  A sure thing is gallery 
openings.  There's wine and there are hors d'oeuvres, and high class 
chatter.  What's to lose?

	I met Glenn Watson at a gallery opening in Oakland, of all 
places.  Oakland is not associated with grand art galleries, but here 
was this opening, and I went to it.  In fact, I went with Harry Lum, 
my former paramour artist.  He'd come up from San Diego for a stay in 
Berkeley, and we usually got together when he was in town.  I was 
wandering through the gallery with a glass of wine in my paw, looking 
at the artwork, all dressed up and impressive.  Those were my wild 
clothes horse days.  I wore long skirts with floral patterns on them, 
probably a white kurta covered with about five layers of Asian 
jackets, most heavily embroidered.  Rings on every finger, velvet 
Chinese shoes with embroidery all across the toes, and Harry's 
Borsalino that he'd given me.  I was quite a sight.

	An unknown man introduced himself to me.  He said he hadn't 
seen me before at openings.  And I told him that I didn't usually go 
to openings in Oakland, because it was, you know, bad for the image. 
This set off a round of repartee that he was perfectly capable of 
keeping up with, something unusual.  I was used to being the only one 
cracking the sly jokes.  The banter was very attractive.  He was a 
handsome man, on the lean side, with thick white hair and a dancer's 
sense of body.  He gestured with his hands, and his face was mobile, 
expressive.  His eyes were an intense blue.  We flirted wildly 
without regard to the art work.  He said he was an artist who lived 
in his studio and showed at local galleries.  I told him he should 
take himself up to his room to see his own etchings.  He laughed at 
every single joke I cracked.  And that made me crack more.  He asked 
for my phone number and I gave it to him.  He said he would call me 
soon.  Very soon.

	At the time, I was living in Richmond Annex, in a craftsman 
style house I'd bought for $22,500 in 1972.  I went home to that 
house and thought about Mr. Watson for the better part of the next 
week, and then the next.  It had seemed like such a sure thing.  Why 
didn't he call?  Why do people not call when they've made it clear 
they will?  This is something I've never understood.  I tell my 
children that I will do what I say I will, and that my word is gold. 
They are growing up this way, and take their promises seriously.  I 
have seen every sort of promise broken, every vow ignored, every 
treaty violated.  And Glenn Watson was just another one of them. 
Then, at the end of the second week, he called.  I should have known 
before I agreed to see him that it was  not going to work out.  I 
should have known before I answered the phone.  But I was so 
desperate for attention, for male attention, that I said yes to 
meeting him, yes, even though he had broken a promise before it all 
began.  Does this make the woman a fool, or a romantic, or just mark 
her for having a forgiving nature?

	He wanted me to come to his loft to see his artwork.  I was 
truly interested in seeing it.  I am always interested in seeing the 
artwork.  He told me where he lived and what time to show up and he 
would meet me at the door.  He explained that he had no doorbell, and 
he lived up a long flight of stairs and in the back where knocking on 
the front door would not be heard.  Why did this not alert me to some 
strangeness?  Or was I just allowing of eccentricity?  What does it 
mean when you have no doorbell, and must arrange for people to meet 
you at your door at a specific time?  I came precisely at 7:30 on a 
Sunday night.  He came down his stairs and met me at the door at 
precisely 7:40.  And what did that mean?  And why did I wait?  I 
waited because his watch may have been running slow, or maybe I 
waited because I thought it was possible that I'd misheard the time. 
Or maybe I waited because I had a forgiving nature.  He led me up the 
stairs and into his loft.  It was meant to be a studio apartment, but 
he'd built an elevated bedroom above the storage area for his 
artwork.  You had to climb a steep ladder to get there.  And I did.

	It was crazy to bed down on a first date, but we were both 
smitten.  The next time, he came to my house.  When he arrived, I was 
in the middle of a decorating binge.  I was squatting on the floor 
with hammer and nails.  I let him in and he said I should go about my 
business as if he weren't there.  He wanted to watch me live for a 
while.  I shrugged my shoulders and proceeded with my project which 
was nailing a pair of shoes to the wall.  They were some of those 
Chinese Mary Janes, velvet and black, with the embroidery on the 
toes.  We got out a pile of paper and wrote poetry all night.  I'd 
write a line; then he'd write a line.  Then we'd trade stanzas.  This 
was heady stuff.  I fell for him, landed on my head.  There was no 
talking to me about any warning signs.  The relationship continued 
with my driving over to his place with a bottle of good wine, and him 
meeting me at the door with a corkscrew.  We would drink the wine and 
then ascend the ladder to his bed.  Then he'd come to my house and 
we'd write poetry, or sing together and then make love on my fold out 
couch.

	There were never any of his friends for me to meet, and we 
never went out.  He was poor.  So was I, but I paid for all the 
bottles of good wine.  When my birthday came around, I made a 
reservation at my favourite Chinese restaurant, invited five of my 
closer friends and invited Glenn Watson.  We all assembled at the 
restaurant, but he was late.  Then he was very late.  Then he was 
half an hour late, and we started without him.  But my mind was on 
him, chasing his image.  Where was he?  Should I be insulted, angry 
or worried?  He never showed up.  And he didn't call the next day, 
nor the next.  Finally, I called him.  He sounded terrible, weak and 
dulled, numb and beaten.  He told me he was glad I'd called.  I 
should come over.  He would let me in and tell me what had happened.

	When I got there I could see that something was indeed wrong. 
He had four days growth of beard on him, his eyes were bloodshot and 
he was visibly shaking.  His surroundings were unkempt and his hair 
uncombed.  He told me that he didn't show up because he'd had a very 
bad anxiety attack.

	"Why?"

	"I'm an agoraphobic.  You know what that means?  I couldn't 
face meeting people.  I broke down.  I couldn't come."

	"Well, you could have called to say you weren't coming.  And 
if you couldn't have managed that, you could have called the 
restaurant and had a message delivered, and if you couldn't have done 
even that you could have called the next day to tell me what had 
happened."

	"Sorry."

	What a cheap word is, "sorry".  And did I make my exit then? 
No.  I listened to his explanation of how he timed his trips to the 
store for 2:30, a.m., when no one else would be around, how he 
couldn't stand being around people, in public.   He just broke out 
into a sweat and shivered.  I tended to  him as I would have tended 
to an ailing cat.  I favoured him, and brushed back his hair, and 
then of course, we ascended his ladder.

	Things devolved from there.  We achieved a circling pattern. 
I would show up with a bottle of wine.  We would drink it, and then 
make love.  Then he'd kick me out.  No overnights, thank you ma'am. 
And when that was established as our pattern, he began to beg me for 
oral sex.  No, not just oral sex.  I had to be willing to have him 
come in my mouth.

	"No."

	"Please.  Men need this.  You don't understand because you're a woman."

	"Don't tell me that men need this.  Be brave.  Say that you 
need this.  And, no, I won't."

	"If you loved me you'd do it."

	"If you loved me, you wouldn't be pressuring me."

	It went on like that.  Soon we had no sex at all unless it 
was felatio.  I serviced him, but removed my mouth before he 
climaxed.  He begged more.  He needed to come in my mouth.  I finally 
relented.  It was a revolting taste, and a disgusting experience.  It 
was all wrong.  Everyone was facing the wrong direction.  I spit him 
out onto the sheets and ran into the bathroom to wash out my mouth. 
A salty, pungent, soapy taste.

	Then he started asking that I swallow it.  This is when I 
backed out.  What would be next?  I had to let him come in my mouth, 
I had to swallow it, and like it?  I left his loft and his place in 
my heart.  I had watched a passionate poetic love affair turn into a 
sick fixation, a rote downing of bottles of wine and sex in the 
elevated bed.  There was nothing left.

	Half a year later, he wrote to me, and in his letter he asked 
himself why he had let me go, why had he pushed me away?  I was the 
best thing ever to happen to him.  But by that time, I had met my 
third husband, and I was ignoring new omens.  The more things change, 
the more they stay the same.


 
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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net