TheBanyanTree: Bedtime Story sort of

[Tobie Shapiro]

September 20, 2000000000000000000000006


Dear Well Beings,

	Here I go again.


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Old White and Big Yellow


	The Hong Kong Flu ravaged the world in 
the winter of 1968.  Practically everyone caught 
it, and it was a monster of a flu.  Dweller and I 
were living down on Chestnut Street.  My sister 
was about to give birth to her eldest son, Ari. 
She was 23.  I think she got by without getting 
sick with it  --  one of the miracle effects of 
pregnancy.

	It was a sudden thing.  Dweller and I had 
gone to the laundromat.  It was in the evening. 
The sun was set.  We loaded all our things into 
the washers.  Then we came back forty minutes 
later to drag everything out and transfer it all 
into the dryer.  The laundromat is still there 
today, probably with the same machines.  When I 
think back on that time in my life, I never 
remember doing laundry at the laundromat, the 
washing of dirty linen in public.  But I do 
remember that one time.  When we parked the VW 
bus in the lot, I stayed in the car while Dweller 
went in to transfer the goods.  In the time it 
took him to execute that task, I fell ill.  I 
fell ill all of a sudden.  One minute I was fine, 
the next I had keeled over and was lying in the 
back of the bus burning up with fever, so sick 
that I could barely stand up and walk into the 
house.

	As soon as Dweller had gotten me safely 
into bed, he thought quickly and headed off to 
the Co-op where he stocked up on sodas, broth, 
fruit juice, jello and all the things you need 
for the sick room.  It was a good thing he did 
that, too, because by the time he got back from 
the store, he was sick too.  Probably just as 
sick as I was.  As the disease took its course, 
we both developed fevers of 104º F.  Looking down 
over my prone body was like seeing the waves of 
air above hot asphalt.  We were completely 
immobilized.  All we did was lie there in the 
heat.  We didn't eat.  We didn't talk.  We didn't 
move our arms or legs.  In fact, the headache was 
so bad, we didn't move our heads.  Moving was an 
act to contemplate as an event of great 
consequence.

	There was a wicked coincidence.  Just 
before we came down with the flu, we had finally 
gotten a new refrigerator.  Our old one was 
called, "Old White".  It was one of those single 
door, round cornered jobs with a freezer 
compartment in the top center large enough for 
one small chicken if you crammed it in just 
right.  And if you didn't defrost it regularly, 
the thing would ice over like a doghouse at the 
north pole.  Then, not even the little toy door 
would open.  Old White was a steady worker, even 
though it was inadequate.  But what it did best 
was make noise.  I used to be able to imitate the 
throes and shudders, whines and hums, clicks and 
thumps in their proper sequence and pitch.  The 
rattles and roars, too.  It was a constant 
accompaniment to our lives.  We got to the point 
where we couldn't hear it any more.

	We'd looked in the free paper, the flea 
market, and found a larger, used refrigerator for 
sale.  We'd driven to the address the man told us 
to, and there, on his lawn, had been several 
refrigerators.  This is where we'd met, "Big 
Yellow".  We had paid the man twenty five dollars 
for Big Yellow, another round shouldered fridge 
with freezer above and the refrigerator below. 
We had carted Big Yellow home, and had plugged it 
in.  Then we had removed Old White from its spot 
in the kitchen, put it on a dolly, and moved it 
out the back door, down the five stairs to the 
back yard, down the short walk way, through the 
gate, had made a left turn and put it in the 
garage.  Then we went to the laundromat.  When 
Dweller got back from the store, he loaded all 
the sodas and fruit juice into Big Yellow and 
came to bed where he collapsed next to me.

	The next morning, our first big decision 
of the day was to send one of us to the kitchen 
to retrieve some fruit juice.  Dweller rose and 
shuffled laboriously into the kitchen.  But he 
called me.  "Tobie.  Come here."  I wrenched 
myself from my stupor and went into the kitchen.

	"Something's wrong with Big Yellow."  And 
indeed there was.  Big Yellow was acting as a 
heater, a big warming oven.  The insides of the 
damn thing were nice and toasty.  So we had to 
remove everything from Big Yellow and cart it out 
the back door, down the five stairs, over the 
walkway, through the gate, left turn and into the 
garage where Old White was plugged in.  It cooled 
things down nicely.  Now, whenever we 
contemplated getting up for something to drink, 
we had to think very hard.  The winter rains had 
come and it was an arduous journey to Old White, 
outside in the rain and wind.  The big excitement 
of the day would be this:

	The jaw of one of our heads opened and 
words came out.  "Do you want anything to drink?"

	The other head's jaw opened and answered, "No."

	A silence

	"Are you sure?"

	Silence

	"Yes, I'm sure."

	"Because I'm going to go, and if you want 
something you should say so now."

	Silence

	"I don't want anything.  Go ahead.  Next time, I'll go."

	My mother came down to our house in the 
third day of our high fevers and put ice packs 
under our arms and in our groins.  We didn't 
bother to be embarrassed.  We were too sick.  And 
through the whole thing, Old White hummed and 
groaned, clicked and thumped while Big Yellow sat 
in the kitchen, unplugged, taunting us every time 
we had to trudge by on our way outside into the 
rain to fetch the goods from Old White.

	When we'd lived through the worst of it 
and were on the road to recovery, we called the 
purveyor of Big Yellow to inform him that the 
refrigerator was heating things.  The man said, 
"Too bad for you."

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Baby Makes Three


	I'm a cat person.  I don't mean to say I 
have no affection for dogs.  I do, but I live 
better with cats, and I have a special affinity 
for them.  But Dweller had always had dogs.  So 
it was that I set out to get him  --  us  --  the 
bestest darn dog that ever lived.  I knew nothing 
about dogs, about dog breeds, about finding a 
dog.  What I did was take out my parents' old 
World Book Encyclopedia from 1954 and look at the 
several pages of illustrations included in the 
article entitled, "Dogs", depicting the one 
thousand favourite dog brands and perused the 
illustrations to find what our dog would look 
like.  I wanted something unusual, and something 
that didn't shed or stink too much.  I wanted 
something smallish, but not tiny and yippy.  I 
wanted a dog that would be well suited to our 
small house, and could be independent for periods 
of time without inordinate whining.  Essentially, 
I wanted a cat, but with a dog label.  I looked 
over the candidates and found a Bedlington 
Terrier.  These are the dogs that grow coats 
thick like a poodle's, white all over, and the 
show cut carves them like topiary to look like 
lambs.  Silly show cut.

	I planned this all on a Sunday.  What a 
great day to find a dog, a rare dog.  Dweller was 
off at a T-group retreat.  He wouldn't be back 
until dinner time.  I called around to pet stores 
and the ones that were open on a Sunday had no 
Bedlingtons.  One pet store owner advised me to 
go to the dog show at the Oakland Auditorium. 
Maybe I would find one there.  A dog show?  This 
Sunday?  A whole dog show?  I rushed down there 
to discover that the entire dog show was 
sponsored by the Bedlington Terrior Association 
of America.  This was a sign.  I walked directly 
to the Bedlington section.  There was a fenced 
off area and a pen in which all these lambs were 
tredding in circles and squatting every once in a 
while, trying unsuccessfully to make dog 
droppings.  They'd skip along for a few paces, 
then their rear ends would hunker down and their 
rear legs would spread out and crouch, but 
nothing would come out.  One of the breeders saw 
me watching and mentioned that a few of the 
Bedlingtons were constipated.  This should have 
given me pause.  But I was on a quest for a dog 
for Dweller.  I asked if any of the dogs was for 
sale, and the breeder looked absolutely 
delighted.  He pointed one out.  It was not among 
the constipatees, but was off to one side, all 
poofy and perfect.

	Did I think about how difficult it would 
be to comb and fluff this dog?  Did I ask myself 
about the responsibility of dog ownership?  Did I 
ask questions about the personality of this dog, 
its temperament, its habits, what to feed it, how 
healthy it was?  No.  I was twenty one years old, 
and I didn't think like that.  I wanted a 
Bedlington to give to my sweetheart, and that's 
the way it would be.  The man told me that the 
dog was a pedigreed Bedlington, but that he was 
not show  material because he had a wry mouth. 
He pulled back the dog's lips to show me how the 
teeth were not absolutely straight.  So what did 
I care?  I wasn't about to take it to an 
orthodontist for cosmetic reasons.  I purchased 
the dog.

	His AKC official name was Nobles True to 
Form.  What a lovely name.  We'd have to think of 
something else.  I raced home with our new dog in 
the back of the VW bus, curled up on the mattress 
much as he'd been curled up on a mat at the dog 
show.  When we got home, I hid him in the 
bathroom just in time for Dweller to get home 
from his retreat.

	"Go in and wash up," I said, "We're due 
at my parents' house in half an hour."

	Dweller said that we should just go then.  He didn't need to wash up.

	"Wash up!" I said, aiming him towards the 
bathroom door.  He must have known something was 
up, but how could he guess what?  He opened the 
bathroom door, and this lamb came trotting out.

	"What's that!?"  Dweller shouted.

	"It's a dog," I answered.  "It's our dog."

	"It is?"

	Such a reception for the baby makes three of our family!

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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net