TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 144

[Tobie Shapiro]

February 7, 20000000007


Dear Friends,

	This morning I have my writing class. 
It's a course in creative non-fiction.  There are 
about eight people in the class.  I say, "about 
eight people", because it is frequent that 
someone doesn't show, so there aren't usually the 
full eight people present.  The teacher is 
terrific.  His name is Andy Couturier 
(ko-TUR-ee-ay) and he wrote a book called, 
"Writing Open the Mind".  He has these wonderful 
exercizes for writers, all about getting a grip 
on your creative unconscious.  He teaches without 
whipping us, and all the critiques are done 
according to a set of rules he has figured out in 
order to make the critiques positive and useful. 
No one gets shredded to ribbons and slinks out, 
humiliated and beaten.  I would recommend his 
book.  I have it and refer to it for all sorts of 
ways to get unstuck, to enliven my writing (Oh, 
I'm sure you've seen a lot of that).

	Today is a special day at the writing 
class because it's my turn to bring my writing 
in.  I spent the last half hour copying and 
collating and stapling nine copies of my 
selections.  It had to conform to five pages 
double space.  But people break the rules in 
Andy's class all the time.  One guy brought in 
nine pages, five of them single space, and only 
four double spaced, and no one complained.  The 
idea is, we take these offerings home and have a 
chance to read them several times and make 
comments on them, write out something helpful for 
the author.  The authors give us a few questions 
to mull over if we feel like it.  And any 
question is fine.  We are also encouraged to say 
what we don't want to hear, e.g., I don't want 
any grammatical corrections.  Then we all bring 
them back the next week, and deliver our oral 
report to the author, one at a time.  This time, 
I selected three Life Story excerpts, and asked 
three questions, then decided to request 
something I really needed.  The fourth "question" 
is: Tell me something good about my writing.  I 
need some encouragement."  And they will do it. 
I have a way of hearing the critique and 
remembering only the negative.  I wish I could 
rid myself of that.  So far, my attempts have 
been unsuccessful.


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Skillful players

	We had a family dinner to go to in San 
Francisco, and Gramma Fannie had already put in 
her call to my mother begging her, "Let them look 
nice."  A curious way to put it, as if my mother 
were holding us back.  You know, I was thinking 
of wearing this lovely frock with matching shoes, 
my hair done up just so, and the proper amount of 
lipstick, but my mother won't let me, so I guess 
I'll go in this shmatta with the torn pockets, 
and I'll skip combing my hair.  Damn!  I went 
into my closet and selected a suitable dress, put 
on my shoes, put up my hair and waited for 
departure while doing my homework.

	Upstairs, a crisis was brewing.  Dana 
couldn't find anything to wear.  It is true that 
she had a whole walk-in closet full of clothes, 
but there was nothing hanging in it that was to 
her liking.  I heard her swaying and scraping 
from her room to her closet, moaning as one 
suddenly bereft of a spouse.

	"I've got nothing to wear!  There's nothing to wear!"

	Then I heard my mother coaxing her, making suggestions:

	"How about this?"

	"Nooooo!  I can't!"

	"What about this?"

	"Noooo!  It doesn't fit!"

	When all her recommendations had been 
rejected, she reminded Dana to choose something 
because we had to leave in twenty minutes.  Then 
she came downstairs shaking her head, worried. 
This was when Dana announced that she wasn't 
coming.  She stripped naked, got into her bed and 
pulled the covers up over her head.  Her dilemma 
wasn't really that she had nothing to wear.  What 
she didn't have was a body she liked enough to 
clothe and bring into public.  She was overweight 
according to fashion, repulsive according to 
herself.  The clothes in her walk-in closet were 
just reminders.

	I still don't understand what would have 
been so terrible if she hadn't come.  What was 
the imperative?  But evidently there was some 
consummately compelling reason why she had to 
come with us.  Our little family was gathering at 
the foot of the stairs leading to the bedrooms. 
Dana was eighteen and on the cusp of 
independence.  All the action was hers to 
dictate.  We all looked up the stairs toward her 
room.

	My mother was wringing her hands in 
anxiety, the Brodofsky gene insinuating itself 
into the angle of her wrists, the twist of her 
fingers.  Woe!  Oh, woe!  Dana might not come. 
What excuse can we possibly give?

	"Dana doesn't feel well," sounded good 
enough to me.  "Dana had too much homework, and 
couldn't make it," was another good one.  But my 
parents just wouldn't consider that.  The clock 
was ticking.  My mother went back upstairs.  She 
knocked on her door.

	 "Dana, get dressed."

	"Nooooo!"

	"Dana, we have to leave in fifteen minutes."

	"I caaaaaaan't!  Leave me alooone!"

	My father parted Daniel and me and strode between us.

	"Mickey, let me handle this!" he 
pronounced clapping his hands, then rubbing them 
together vigorously.  "Watch this!" he added, 
checking around to see that we were all paying 
attention.  He marched purposefully up the stairs 
and pushed my mother aside.  He banged on Dana's 
door.

	"I'll give you to the count of three!" he 
bellowed, his face turning red, the veins on his 
neck standing out like cables.  "One!"  He looked 
around at us.  "Two!"  He took a deep breath. 
"THREE!"  He swung the door open, invaded her 
bedroom.

	"Go away!" she yelled.  "I'm not going!"

	He ripped the covers off of the bed 
exposing her crumpled up, nude on her mattress. 
"You'll come!"

	"Noooo!"  She grappled for the covers.

	Amidst the shouting match,

	"Go away!"

	"You'll come!"

	"How dare you!"

	"You're coming!"

he took hold of his eighteen year old daughter by 
the great toe of her left foot and dragged her 
off of her bed onto the floor, then across the 
floor, out of her room and down the stairs, her 
head bouncing on every carpeted step, as she 
clawed the rug.  He pulled her by her toe down 
the tiled steps to the front entrance way.  Then 
ceremoniously he dropped her toe and dramatically 
wiped his hands of her.

	The rest of us were frozen in place. 
This was another of the marvellous scenes that 
we'd come to know and love.  The spectacle of my 
older sister being yanked by her toe completely 
naked through half the house and deposited in the 
front hallway was too humiliating to witness. 
Like a wreck at the side of the freeway, we 
gaped, gob smacked, and shuddered.

	Dana scrambled up the stairs to her room, 
put something, anything, on and went down to the 
car with the rest of us.  All the way over to San 
Francisco, she sniffed and glowered at her 
father.  My mother was silent.  Daniel and I 
tried to play a few games.  Justin was 
triumphant.  He drove the car triumphantly.  He 
boasted about his own capabilities triumphantly. 
He had won.

	But that would be underestimating my 
sister's prowess ("prowess", like, "actress," 
and, "waitress," is a female word).  She got even 
that evening by forcing a show down at the family 
gathering.  There were upwards of twenty five 
people there,  all the feuds and gossip gurgling 
just below the surface of the conversation.  And 
there, on top, Dana found an arguable point with 
Justin.  They got into a tiff, and still red in 
the face from crying, she abruptly stood up from 
the table, slammed her napkin down and hollered, 
"You bastard!" at his eyeballs.  "God damn you!" 
And she stumbled to the front door, flung it 
open, stomped off to the car and hid there for 
the rest of the evening.  This left my father 
standing at the table with insolence stuck to his 
face.  He had no explanation for, "Goddamn you! 
You bastard!"  She was gone, out of sight.  No 
one could stare at her.  But all twenty five 
people were staring at him.  She showed him.  A 
scene for a scene.  This is how the game is 
played by truly excellent players.  It was always 
inspiring to witness.



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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net