TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 204

[Tobie Shapiro]

April 21, 20000007


Dear Souls,

	I let myself sleep in this morning.  So I 
woke up at 7:20.  Pathetic.  Now Feyna!  Feyna 
knows how to sleep in!  On the weekends, and the 
days she doesn't have to be in school at 9:00 
(all the way into the city and nearly out the 
other end), she can sleep until noon.  I've known 
her to sleep past noon.  A few times that meant 
sleeping until 3:00 in the afternoon.  And this 
is not because she pulled an all nighter either. 
She probably went to bed around midnight, maybe 
1:00.  She'll emerge from the basement apartment, 
in her pajamas halfway through the day, 
complaining that she didn't know she was going to 
sleep so long, that she shouldn't have slept so 
long.  And the rest of the crowd who have been up 
since early in the morning, just gape at her 
shuffling through the kitchen in her purple silky 
pajamas, rubbing her eyes like a three year old, 
and pouting.  It's remarkable, really.  I 
remember once sleeping until ten in the morning. 
This was when I was a high school student.  Ten 
o'clock in the a.m., and I was distraught.  How 
could I have let the whole world go by while I 
was still snoozing?  It bothered me all that day. 
I felt I'd cheated myself.  And what of 
importance would I have done that morning if I'd 
awakened at seven or eight?  I would have done 
nothing of importance, probably, but I would have 
done it sooner.  In the scheme of things, does it 
matter if I sleep until six, eight, or ten?  I 
frequently feel that there are not enough hours 
in the day.  I want to throw in a handful more. 
Maybe even make it a thirty six hour day.  So 
much more could get done.  Maybe there wouldn't 
be the pressure, the rush, the overwhelm at 
having to attend to a million things in only 
twenty four hours.  But, of course, that's not 
true.  It would only work if I got thirty six 
hours, while everyone else got only twenty four.

	It's not going to happen.  Not for you either.

	But for Feyna, probably what she'd do is 
sleep in a little later, then come upstairs in 
her purple silky pajamas, rubbing her eyes and 
moaning that she wasted this terrific opportunity 
to catch up on things.  Oh woe!




 
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Poison Oak

	I am not susceptible to the toxic effects 
of Poison Oak.  Of course, there was no way for 
me to know that until I accidentally basted 
myself with it and nothing happened.  So I 
thought for sure that I would be like everyone 
else.  Therefore, I kept my distance.  I 
memorized what those noxious leaves looked like, 
and never went near them: anything with three 
leaves in a cluster, Urushiol.  Leaves of three, 
let it be; berries white, poisonous sight.

	In the seventh grade, John Finn came to 
math class after a week's absence, his face so 
deformed that I couldn't look at him without my 
stomach lurching.  His face was a swollen leather 
bladder with reddened, scabby peep holes for eyes 
and a rupture for a mouth.  There was a crusty 
bloody rash spread out over his cheeks and nose 
that wept puss.  At first I thought his house 
must have burned down and he was dragged from the 
fire, or maybe something nasty had exploded in 
his face.  People were afraid to ask him what 
happened.  You just don't walk up to the fellow 
with a stump for one arm and leg and call out in 
any sort of voice, cheerful or deeply concerned, 
"Hey, what happened to YOU?!"  It's insensitive. 
Not that insensitivity is forbidden. 
Insensitivity may just be one of the prime 
requisites for fame and fortune.  But we know not 
to ask about terrible tragedies.

	"Say, Burt!  Word is you've just found 
out you have Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.  Feel 
anything yet?  How long does it take for this ALS 
thing to kill you, anyway?"

	So I found out from the teacher along 
with all the other students in the class.  Mr. 
Revtak must have noticed the signs of shock and 
awe and he took it upon himself to announce, 
"John Finn is back in class now, after a bad run 
in with Poison Oak.  Please be  kind."

	"Oh!" said the entire class.  And we 
tried to go back to our work, but there was John 
Finn among us, evidence of how you can't keep 
your eyes off the horror.

	There used to be a man who roamed around 
downtown Berkeley, at least that is where I saw 
him, on Shattuck or in the main library. 
Everyone knew who you meant when you referred to, 
"the man without a face".  He was tall, had a 
purposeful gait, aimed directly where he was 
going and went there with no diversions.  He was 
always alone, and that didn't surprise anyone. 
He had fine grey and brown hair that he combed 
neatly.  He was always clean and well presented. 
And then, he didn't have a face.  It was just a 
plastering of scar tissue stretched across the 
front of his skull.  There was a hole for his 
mouth, two holes where his nose should have been, 
and two slots for his eyes.  This was how he met 
the world, and how the world met him.

	Yvonne's mother had a boyfriend, Sharad, 
who was born and raised in India.  He didn't know 
the social rules in this country.  He just went 
up to the man without a face and asked what had 
happened to him.  I was as shocked to hear that 
Sharad had approached him as I was to hear his 
story.  It was in the Korean war.  A bomb blew up 
in his face.  He was very lucky to have survived. 
I don't know what else Sharad and the man without 
a face talked about.  Knowing Sharad, after he'd 
been given the information he'd needed, he 
probably thanked him and walked away.  Some time 
during the last twenty years, I stopped seeing 
the man around town, so I assumed he died.

	John Finn's face gradually returned to 
normal and we eventually stopped staring at him, 
avoiding him, whispering about him.  The lesson I 
learned from John Finn's experience was just how 
bad Poison Oak could be.  A vile plant.  Don't 
walk in the woods.  Watch out when you're in 
Tilden.  Stay on the paths.

	Our Labour Zionist Youth organization 
held a picnic in some out of the way park. 
Everyone from the Northern California contingent 
was there.  All the familiar faces from camp 
Na'ami.  The announcement said to bring a swim 
suit.  Dana and I geared up to go.  It was on a 
Sunday.  We were twelve and fourteen.  My mother 
drove us out to the grounds and dropped us off. 
She would come back at four o'clock to pick us 
up.  Call if we wanted to come home sooner.  We 
ran around, exhausting ourselves.  We wriggled 
into our swimsuits and swam in the pool.  We ate 
the food; we drank the juice.  We threw around 
some of the Hebrew we'd learned in camp.  A few 
of us went on a follow-the-leader excursion, 
running up and down the pathways, climbing over 
fences, doing whatever the leader did.  Swat the 
tree.  Turn around once.  Hop in the air.  Shout 
hello.  Dana and I were in the troop.  At one 
point, the leader hunkered down on his feet and 
rode on his bottom down a woodsy ravine.  There 
was only one tree on the way into the ravine that 
was sturdy enough to grab onto for balance.  I 
felt myself listing off to the right and slowed 
myself as I slid, tushie first, over the dirt and 
shrubbery.  I steadied myself by wrapping my arms 
around this tree, then skidding down the slope. 
As I got to the bottom, the leader called out 
that the foliage climbing that tree was Poison 
Oak.  He hoped we hadn't touched it.

	Touched it!?  I'd smeared myself with it. 
Images of John Finn came to my mind.  I ran like 
crazy to the nearest bathroom and washed as 
thoroughly as possible, but the park soap was 
that pink grainy stuff, and how could that help? 
Maybe it would just spread it around.  I was 
scared.  I knew I was going to burst out into 
bouquets of pustules.  Truth is, I didn't know 
what to expect.  The uncertainty  heightened the 
fear.  I reached in my pocket for a dime to call 
and get Mom to drive out quickly, take us home 
immediately.  But I had no dime.  I went to Dana 
and asked for one.

	She wouldn't give one to me.  She was 
having fun and wanted to stay until it was all 
over.  I pleaded with her, thinking that time was 
of the essence.  The more time that toxic juice 
spent on my skin, the worse the calamity.  I gave 
up on Dana and ran to one of the counselors who 
gave me a dime.  I took it to the first pay phone 
I could find.  But Dana saw me before I could 
make my call.  She ambushed me, seized my arm and 
yanked me out of the booth.  I was screaming. 
She was screaming.  She dragged me off to a 
little hill by the main path, threw me down in 
the dirt, leapt on top of me and pounded away, 
including her very famous choking trick.  I was 
blind with rage and desperation, flailing around, 
trying to get her off of me.  Her mean face hung 
over mine, yelling how we weren't going home 
early, so what about the Poison Oak.  There was 
probably nothing I could do about it to lessen 
the effects.  If I got it, I got it.

	Suddenly, two full-fledged counselors 
grabbed Dana by each shoulder and peeled her off 
of me.  They held her while she thrashed.  I 
remember seeing the counselors and seeing Dana 
receding from me.  Nothing else registered.  I 
was too furious to figure anything out.  As they 
pulled her away from me, I rose up and dived on 
top of her, reversed the positions.  I pummeled 
her with my fists, growling and shrieking.  Then 
I noticed what was going on.  The counselors drew 
me back and told me to stop.  I stopped, even 
though it felt like justice was being delivered 
by throttling her.

	I told them the story of the Poison Oak 
on the tree.  They knew the story.  They had me 
rush off and call my mother from the phone booth. 
She left home immediately and picked us up.  Dana 
was fuming.  She sat on her side of the car, her 
anger festering in the sun.  My mother explained 
to me that it would take a while for my body to 
start reacting to the Poison Oak.  Wash up now. 
We'll see tomorrow.  I cringed when I thought of 
how I'd gripped all that Poison Oak in my hands 
and slid my whole body in the thick of it.  I had 
been seriously exposed.  I took a shower, washed 
twice with soap and water, then rinsed several 
times in case there were juices imbedded in my 
sick skin.  My skin was going to be sick.

	In the morning, there was no sign of a 
reaction on my skin, not a single red bump.



 
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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net