TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 159

[Tobie Shapiro]

February 22, 200000000000007


Dear  You There,

	Yesterday morning, before anyone else in 
the house was awake, I got up from my chair at 
the computer, realizing that my left foot was 
asleep, and walked carefully, very carefully to 
the hallway.  But careful didn't do it.  My left 
foot buckled and I strained my ankle.  Not like I 
did last time my leg fell asleep, but enough so 
that it hurts when I walk.  Well, so what, I 
never did that much walking anyway.  This is a 
lie.  I like to take walks.

	In other news, Feyna went on her trial 
run last night for the prospective job.  The job 
was going door to door in San Francisco for Clean 
Water Action, an organization that is unfamiliar 
to me, but evidently has been around for twenty 
years.  They are a watchdog outfit that keeps its 
eyes trained on the national activity affecting 
our water quality.  While, I didn't like the idea 
that Feyna would be going door to door in the 
evening in San Francisco, this is the only 
potential job she'd succeeded in getting an 
interview for.  The trial run would take her into 
the trenches, knocking on doors with another 
employee, opening their discussion with, "I'm not 
trying to sell you anything."  Well, actually, 
that's wrong.  They are trying to sell something: 
memberships or donations to the cause.  I figured 
if there were something amiss at headquarters, 
then she would see it and take evasive action.

	She came back late last night, 
disappointed and a little angry.  She'd gone to 
do their work, knocked on the doors, greeted 
total strangers, and was thrown off a few 
porches.  One guy even started screaming at them 
that he'd call the police.  (Maybe they missed 
that, "No Solicitors," placard next to the 
doorbell.)  She said that when she got back to 
headquarters, they told her that she was good, 
but not good enough to work for them.  I wonder 
on what they based that decision.  Probably she 
didn't gather enough signatures and money, 
renewed memberships and new memberships.  She was 
very upset because she'd thrown a lot of hope 
into this possibility for a job, and she needs a 
job desperately.  I'm relieved that she won't be 
traipsing through San Francisco at night, 
interrupting people's dinners or quiet evenings 
at home, annoying the hell out of people for a 
good cause.  It's dangerous out there, and then 
the coming home at 10:30 wasn't great either. 
She'd have to take a taxi from the BART station, 
and that would add up.  Nevertheless, it was a 
good experience, I think.  Get her warmed up for 
the next attempt.  Knock, knock.  Who's there? 
I'm not trying to sell you anything.




 
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What're You Going As?

	Halloween has never been my favourite 
holiday as an adult.  I find it difficult to wear 
a costume, as it's hard enough to try to be 
myself without the added impediment of a 
purposeful ruse.  Grown-up Halloween parties are 
full of acting and posturing, even more than 
usual.  And, in fact, I've not been a fan of 
parties in general.  I get lost in the sea of 
unfamiliar faces.  There is no harbor.  I pine 
for stability, an anchor, a known embrace, 
someone who understands me.  On Halloween, it 
seems that no one knows anybody.  Plus there is 
always the fear of sewing.  What if stapling the 
costume together, or applying glue stick isn't 
enough?  Then there's the sweating inside a hulk 
of disguise, the many layered, "I fooled you".

	When I was little, it was easy.  My 
mother asked me what I wanted to be.  I told her, 
and she made it for me.  She was brilliant. 
She'd take Dr. Denton's long johns, the ones with 
the flap in the back, and she'd dye them all 
sorts of colours, add hand painted wings for a 
butterfly, turn them backwards for a kangaroo's 
pouch, sew a tail on for a cat, staple stiff 
triangles along the spine for a stegosaurus.  She 
could do anything.  Then the most onerous 
responsibility on Halloween was to have to eat 
all that candy, and the discomfort of hauling 
that heavy bag around.  Little kids can suffer, 
too.  Hath not a little kid eyes?  Hath not a 
little kid hands, organs, dimensions, senses, 
affections, passions?  Fed with the same food, 
hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same 
diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and 
cooled by the same winter and summer, as a 
grown-up is?  If you prick kids, do they not 
bleed?  If you tickle them, do they not laugh? 
If you poison them, do they not die?

	As an adult, I became the one who had to 
pull the costume out of the hat.  And I didn't 
enjoy it.  The closest I got to enjoying it was 
when Dweller and I threw a Halloween party and 
told everyone to come exactly as they were not. 
I thought about dressing up as a crack sergeant 
in the military, pulling my hair back tight, 
wearing a uniform and barking out orders, donning 
a lot of dazzling decorations, medals, stars and 
stripes, saluting instead of saying hello.  But I 
didn't think I could keep that up all evening. 
Besides, there is a little bit of the commander 
in me.  I was to discover that as I did my boot 
camp as a mommy.  Speaking of which, that is what 
I finally decided to dress up as exactly as I 
wasn't: pregnant.  I wore a granny dress, an 
empire waist, black with little red flowers all 
over it.  I stuffed a pair of oversized underwear 
with foam rubber and wadded up clothing, then 
shaped it and tied it down for the pregnant 
belly.  It looked frighteningly real.  I suppose 
the fact that it frightened me so much qualified 
it for exactly as I was not.  And oh, it 
frightened Dweller, too.

	The one thing I knew I didn't want and 
the one thing he knew he didn't want was for me 
to be pregnant.  We were very very careful about 
birth control.  At first, I was on the pill just 
like everyone else.  Those were in the days that 
the pill was primitive, and the doses of hormones 
were gross.  I reacted very strongly to the pill. 
First, I gained a lot of weight, which made me 
look pregnant.  Now what was the point in that? 
Then my skin dried out and I acquired some 
fantastic headaches.  I was fatigued all the 
time, dragging my feet.  And I lost my sex drive. 
Indeed, what was the point in THAT!?  So, I 
removed myself from the pill and got fitted for a 
diaphragm.  Then, sex was always preceded by 
fumbling with the greasy frisbee.  When the 
instructions called for a teaspoon of spermicidal 
cream, I'd load in a tablespoon.  And when they 
called for leaving the diaphragm in for four 
hours, I'd leave it in for a day.  Just to be 
sure, you see.  So pregnant was exactly as I was 
not.  And it was actually fun parading around in 
this artificial protuberance.  Those who knew me 
laughed.  Those who didn't know me congratulated 
me.

	When the doorbell rang and the 
trick-or-treaters were waiting on the stairs to 
the porch, I stood in the doorway, back lit like 
a Madonna, and the mommies and daddies gathered 
at the foot of the stairs, urging their offspring 
on to their duties, would gaze up at me with 
warmth and comraderie in their eyes.  "When are 
you due?" they would ask.  "Congratulations!" 
they would beam.

	"Oh, this!?" I cackled, and I pounded the 
protuberance with both my fists as if I were 
Tarzan yodelling in the jungle.  They would 
startle, gape for a second before catching on to 
the joke.  But they'd walk away silently, a bit 
shaken.  I'd reposition the huge lump and go back 
to the party.  The abortion was easy.  I just 
yanked out all the stuffing and threw it away. 
No wilting after effects or tearful regrets. 
Just fertile and foetusless again.

	One Halloween, Dweller and I decided to 
give the trick-or-treaters a different sort of 
experience.  We had a front porch that was 
glassed in.  We set up a black light and I heated 
up a cauldron of hot chocolate.  We arranged a 
whole bank of styrofoam cups and a few opened 
bags of marshmallows.  The ladle hung over the 
edge of the pot of hot chocolate.  When kids came 
to the door, I'd say, "You get hot chocolate with 
marshmallows, but before we give it to you, we're 
going to do a little magic."  My brother was over 
for the evening to help us out.  What we proposed 
to the clueless kiddies was levitating my 
brother.  He'd lie there on the floor in the 
front porch.  We'd put three people on each side 
of him.  Two at his head and shoulders, two at 
his waist, two at his legs.

	"Put two fingers of each hand under him 
and try to lift him on the count of three.  One. 
Two.  Three!"  They'd strain to lift him, but of 
course, he wouldn't rise up.

	Then we'd direct them to put all their 
hands way up over, "the body," and join  together 
in a pile of hands.  We'd count patiently to 
thirty.  And directly following the count of 
thirty, we'd put our fingers back under my 
brother and lift him up, which was suddenly 
effortless.  This spooked the hell out of many of 
them who would pass on the chocolate to go run 
away, screaming, "Let's get out of here!"  After 
our demonstration, we had true believers bowing 
and scraping backwards down the front steps, and 
walking away, sucking on their marshmallows. 
Styrofoam cups littered our front lawn.

	After the evening waned and the trail of 
kids in costumes died down, we were adults and 
had to clean up our mess.  Nothing magic about 
that.  Another evening come and gone, better 
spent in the sanctity of a good conversation or a 
huddle of chamber music.  What makes Tobie tick?



 
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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net