TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 196

[Tobie Shapiro]

April 7, 2000000000000007


Dear Steerers of your own ships,

	I sent off my Life Stories 195 yesterday, 
and it failed to appear in my in bucket.  I kept 
looking for it, but it didn't arrive.  When 
things like this happen, I ascribe them to the 
mysteries of the internet, the inscrutable 
computer phenomena.  It isn't possible for me to 
sleuth them out. I know how to type.  I type 
fast.  But my computer is a glorified IBM 
Selectric.  I do not understand its inner 
workings, nor do I comprehend the inner workings 
of the internet.  So after a few hours, when I 
was sure it wasn't going to arrive at all, I sent 
it again.  And that one didn't arrive either. 
Thus it was that I figured there was something up 
at Banyan Tree headquarters  (think of that word: 
headquarters.  It could be grizzly.)  This 
morning I arrived at my computer hoping that 
either one of my missives had arrived, and that 
Banyan Tree was fully operational.  I saw 
Margaret Kramer's piece shining at me, so I knew 
my 195 should have arrived, but it didn't (they 
didn't).  What there was, though, was my daily 
SPAM filter mailing.  I have to click on the URL 
and go to the bin where they are holding all my 
suspected SPAM, go over it for possible false 
positives, erase the rest.  So, once a day I am 
faced with, "Why be a small man?",  "Rx by mail", 
"You could be a winner,"  "Hi, Tobie, remember 
me?", and the standard, "Impeach Bush", "Send us 
money".  There was a long list today.  And there, 
among the SPAM were my two Life Stories 195, the 
evil SPAM sender, Tobie Shapiro.  I selected them 
out for delivery to my in box, and approved the 
sender for future deliveries.

	Okay.  So I'm a SPAMmer.  I send these 
horrible stories to the millions of people on my 
list, hoping to get business from less than 1%. 
That's still a lot of business.  But the puzzle 
remains unsolved; the mysteries of the internet 
and the inscrutable computer phenomena still 
apply.  Why would just this one day, the 
professional SPAM detectors filter out my Life 
Stories as SPAM when they've never done that 
before?  Was there something about the subject 
line?  Is there a suspicious aura about the 
number 195 as opposed to 193 or 194?  Was there 
something new added at SPAM filter headquarters 
(there's that word again)?  Can there be a fluke? 
But then, what are the chances of the fluke being 
repeated?  I am awash in the conundrum.  I am 
flummoxed by the maddening mystique of the 
computer.





 
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
                                    ½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½
 
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS



I'll Show You a Thing or Two

	After Grampa Benny died, I volunteered to 
sleep overnight at Grama and Grampa's house to 
see to it that there was company for Grama and 
Aunt Belle, to help them with their breakfast, to 
make sure everyone took their pills, to be 
available, to be a warm body, to be someone safe 
and honest who loved them.  Unfortunately, 
Bernie, the horrifying husband number two, 
insisted on staying, too.

	I'd had it with the marriage, and was 
ashamed of my choice.  How could I have brought 
this embarrassment on myself?  I was married to a 
depressed, immobilized, sexually perverted lump 
who could not lift himself up off the ground to 
take part in his own life, so he spent his 
energies draining the lives of others.  I'd 
gotten to the point that I didn't like looking at 
him, secretly referred to him as, "The Michelin 
Man", and avoided eye contact.  I distanced 
myself from him spiritually, psychologically and 
actually.  I dreaded the steep climb into bed 
every night.  And now there was a crisis.  My 
Grampa Benny had died.  He was only eighty eight, 
a child in our family with its ninety nine year 
olds, centenarians and thousand year old seers. 
Grama and Grampa had been married for sixty eight 
years.  Perhaps it was a premonition that moved 
Grampa to request a huge celebration for their 
sixty eighth anniversary, which was in March.  He 
died in May.  And from the day of his death, I 
reoriented myself so that I was spending the 
nights in San Francisco at the ancestral manse, 
and working days at Joel Zebrack's office in 
Oakland.

	Round about 6:00, I'd meet Bernie in West 
Portal, near my Grandparents' house on Mount 
Davison.  It was a short drive from there to Del 
Sur Avenue where I took over the care of my 
injured relatives, still reeling from the shock, 
the absence of Benny, the unimaginable absence of 
Benny.  We set up the hide-a-bed in the T.V. 
room, and when everybody was ready to turn in for 
the night, the lights would go out, and Bernie 
would be left with me.  He was a swarm on the 
other side of the mattress.  The room was the 
same room Dana and I had slept in when we were 
five and seven years old.  The same room where 
the diaphanous white curtains had been blown in 
by the wind through the open window and Dana was 
sure it was the Beast from Twenty Thousand 
Fathoms breathing outside.  That's what set the 
curtains billowing in.  This was the same room 
that I'd sat in with my grandparents and Aunt 
Belle watching the television spew some stupid 
rot while we nested in each others' company.  I 
used to sit by the side of Grampa Benny's tan 
naugahyde recliner, holding his hand, holding a 
man's hand without inviting danger unto myself. 
It was worth a prayer of gratitude.

	Now, I was sharing that same fold out bed 
with my husband and arch enemy, Bernie 
Lustgarten.  How could I defile the room so?  I 
lay there wishing there were a way to make Bernie 
disappear without hurting anyone's feelings, only 
disturbing time and events by erasing the last 
year.  The lights were all out.  Everyone was in 
their beds.  The house was quiet.  Bernie 
whimpered to speak to Cloud, his ersatz wisewoman 
and spirit guide, fueled by my imagination and my 
desire to train Bernie's fury against women.  He 
asked for Cloud while I pretended to sleep. 
Cloud made her brief appearance to calm Bernie 
down and give him his moment of delusion.  Oh 
yes, she was a previous incarnation of Tobie 
Shapiro, wife and enemy.  But Cloud was absent of 
all the uxorious toxicity.  She could talk Bernie 
into humanity.  She could convince him to set 
aside his yen for hot photographs of hair and 
holes, his visions of nipples protruding through 
wet tee shirts.  Cloud was magic.  She eased 
Bernie into a peaceful sleep.  Then I closed her 
up and lay there in the dark without Grampa 
Benny.  My eyes were wide open drinking in the 
black air.  I could barely make out the open 
window.

	Then I heard a moan from Grama's room. 
It was like a low siren with a rhythm to it.  Her 
voice rose higher and higher, faster and faster, 
until she was screaming.  She screamed, "Get away 
from me!"  I leapt up and ran into her room.  She 
was asleep, in a bottomless sleep, and she was 
shouting, "Go away!  I'll show you a thing or 
two!"  I put my hand on her bony shoulder.

	"Grama.  Wake up!  You're having a bad 
dream.  It's a dream.  Grama, it's only a dream. 
Wake up!"  I rocked her shoulder, called her 
again.  "Grama, wake up.  You're having a 
nightmare.  Grama!"

	She opened her eyes, but she was still in 
the grips of the dream.  "Get out of here!" she 
yelled at me.  "Go away!  I'll beat you.  Get 
away from me!"  She waved her arms in front of 
her, swiped at the air between us.

	The assault on me by this woman I loved 
so dearly struck me to my heart.  I couldn't 
reason with her.  She wouldn't wake up.  Her eyes 
were open and she was screaming at me to go away. 
I was lost.  I missed my Grampa Benny.  He'd know 
what to do.  The confusion overwhelmed me and I 
ran off into the hallway where I broke down in 
tears.  I sobbed at the thermostat on the wall. 
This was something I couldn't bear.

	"Tobie?  Honey dear?"  Grama called me. 
A different voice, a sentient voice.  "Come here, 
honey dear.  Come back."

	I wiped my tears with the back of my hand 
and returned to the side of her bed.  She looked 
up at me.  "It was only a dream," she told me. 
"Don't cry.  Here.  Come get into bed."  She 
lifted the covers and invited me in.

	"What were you dreaming?"

	"Grampa and I were walking in the park, 
both with our canes.  And a strange ugly man came 
up to us.  He took Grampa's cane and Grampa fell 
down.  I screamed so loud at the man.  I screamed 
at him, 'Get away!  I'll show you a thing or 
two!' and I tried to hit him with my cane.  "Get 
away!  Go away!"  Then I woke up.

	I knew immediately what the dream was 
about.  But I didn't tell her.  I stood by her 
pillow until she assured me I could go back to 
bed.  She was fine.  She was fine.  Really.  She 
was fine, missing her companion of sixty eight 
years.

	I was not fine, going back to the dim bed 
where my husband of less than one year, who was 
an error, snored a hole through my ears.  I got 
into bed and crumpled up on the far edge of my 
side.

	"Go away!  Get out of here!  I'll show you a thing or two!"



 
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
                                    ½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½
 
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net