TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 137

[Tobie Shapiro]

January 31, 2000000007


Dear Tree Folks,

	I got a number of responses to Life 
Stories 136, about Mark Farmer, the first gay 
friend I ever had, and his miserable experience 
with being closeted, as was everyone in those 
days.  The stories told to me by Tree folks about 
their own homosexuality, or that of their 
children or siblings was so sad I cried for them. 
It is by accident that I was born heterosexual, 
and pretty exclusively it seems.  There have been 
times when I've wished that I were gay.  I've had 
such a hard time with men, as the stories reveal, 
that it would have been a logical reaction.  But 
there is nothing logical about it.  We don't 
select our gender preferences.  We are born with 
them.

	I used to joke around that the only 
reason I'm not a lesbian is that I don't like to 
get my hands sticky.  And that would be worth a 
laugh.  But after some of the e-mail you all sent 
me, I can hardly make a joke about anything.  One 
person said that the experience of a single 
homosexual attraction illustrated the meanness of 
Man.  I see that everywhere.  Yet, I really do 
think that it is our compassion and kindness that 
will save our whole species if it is to be saved. 
I tend that part of me, love it, encourage it. 
If I could have done anything to save Mark Farmer 
I would have done it.  I was far too young and 
didn't know what to do other than be a friend. 
If he'd just been born twenty years later in the 
bay area, it would have been better for him.  I 
dreampt about him last night.  We were in the art 
room.  I said, "Mark!  I thought you were dead." 
And he said, "I am dead.  Big deal."  That 
sounded just like him.  I told him I was sorry 
that I hadn't done more to ease his load.  He 
said, "Uh oh," and faded into the art equipment 
on the shelves.  I cursed my stupid dream before 
I woke up.




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Twisting my neck

	I was thirteen and slow to mature. 
Everyone in our family achieves physical 
milestones late.  We teethe late, talk late, walk 
late, reach puberty late, grow slowly.  The men 
are pink cheeked and smooth until they're in 
their twenties.  The women don't start 
menstruating until fourteen or fifteen.  We even 
die late.  At thirteen, I was still shaped like a 
garlic sausage with only the first little 
hardened buds of breasts, and no periods yet.  My 
grandmother was worried about Tobie not, "coming 
sick," yet every month.  All the other girls in 
my class were blossoming and changing, wearing 
brassieres and whispering together about, "I get 
out of gym today; I've got the curse."  The 
curse.  That is how I viewed my impending coming 
of age.  I was scared to death.  When I started 
my periods, I knew I was going to crack open 
suddenly and hemorrhage, bleed all over 
everything, have cramps that might kill.  This 
was what I'd been warned by those who went before 
me, and all the scientific explanations my mother 
had ever given me, all the instructional films 
shown us in sex education couldn't stand up to 
the mythology of adolescence.

	There was something else I dreaded about 
becoming a woman.  All around me, I saw 
frustrated unfulfilled females, subservient to 
their husbands who ignored or ridiculed them, or 
as in my mother's case, who tortured her with his 
sadistic games.  I wanted no part of that.  Here 
was womanhood, steaming towards me, gaining 
speed, and there was no way for me to avoid it. 
I also sensed that my father's sexual fixation on 
me was bad enough while I was still a cylinder. 
What would happen when I got a shape:  breasts, 
hips, pubic hair, all the things he told dirty 
jokes about while his face turned red.  I wanted 
to have a father, a real father, one who cared 
about me, watched over me.  But I didn't have 
that.  I had a large eight year old brother with 
the atom bomb.

	Even though, physically, I was retarded, 
I had the angst and insomnia of a mature 
neurotic.  I had bouts where I would lie in bed 
shaking, unable to sleep.  I'd tell myself 
stories, try to bore myself with a book, close my 
eyes and wait for sleep to overcome me, but 
nothing would happen.  One night I had the shakes 
and couldn't sleep.  I called my mother.  Mothers 
fix things.  I told her I couldn't get to sleep, 
and she advised me to calm down, gave me a few 
suggestions as to how, and told me she would be 
right next door in her bedroom.  I rolled over 
and tried the sleepy eye doldrums.  But fifteen 
minutes went by and I was still vibrating, 
nervous, anxious, wide awake.  I called my mother 
again.  She came in, a little less patient. 
"Don't worry.  You'll be able to sleep.  It will 
happen."  She went back into her room.  I'm sure 
she was tired, just trying herself to get to bed 
and get some rest until her morning, and here was 
her middle child, getting in the way.  I lay 
there for another forever, and finally called her 
again.  She came in, this time visibly impatient, 
maybe even annoyed.

	"I'm sorry.  I just can't sleep.  I can't help it.  I'm sorry, Mom"

	"I'll send in your father," she said.

	I was desperate.  Any parent in a storm. 
He came in in his bathrobe and sat on my guest 
bed.  He said, "Don't worry if you can't sleep. 
Enjoy being awake."

	That didn't do it.  He sat there 
expounding on why being awake was a fine thing to 
do all night.  He lay down on the bed, and 
reached over to hold my hand.  I let him.  We lay 
there.  Eventually, I fell asleep briefly, but I 
woke up suddenly.  When I woke up, my father's 
arm was stretched out, and his hand was around my 
nipple.  I sprang up out of bed, and ran to the 
bathroom where I locked myself in and huddled in 
the corner shivering.  Had he fallen asleep that 
way, feeling my breast?  What else had he been 
doing to me while I lay there trusting him.  I 
should never trust him.  I slapped myself across 
the face for having trusted him.  I should never 
have let him into my room.  I hit myself on the 
head until my head and my knuckles were black and 
blue.  I may as well have brought it on myself. 
Asleep while he was on the loose.  Stupid girl! 
Idiot!  I would never trust anyone again.

	I stayed in the bathroom all night, and 
in the morning when it was time for me to get 
ready for school, I told my  mother through the 
bathroom door that I was too sleepy to go to 
school.  I've got diarrhea, I told her, when, 
"too sleepy," wasn't enough.  Diarrhea did the 
trick.  My parents left for work, and two hours 
later, I came out of the bathroom.  I was afraid 
to go into my own bedroom, because it was the 
scene of a crime.  I couldn't shake the 
psychological imprint of his hand on my breast. 
I cringed.  I writhed.  I wept.  I shook.  I 
determined that I would tell my mother when she 
came home.  I had to tell her.  She had to know 
what her husband was.

	When she got home I said I had to talk to 
her.  I stammered.  I muttered.  I couldn't make 
the words come.  She must have noticed how 
difficult it was for me, and she said for me not 
to worry.  I could tell her anything.  It was 
safe with her.  I tried to stay sober about this. 
I wanted no tears, no hyperbolic display of 
emotion.  I wanted objectivity.  But there was 
none.  I told her, crying, what had happened, and 
she sat there, still.  I was waiting for a 
reaction, but I didn't get one.

	"You can't tell Justin.  Don't tell him 
what I told you!  He'll just deny it, and then 
you'll believe him.  He's not going to admit it. 
Please don't tell him."

	"All right," she agreed.

	There were no other words shared between us.  I didn't feel relieved.

	The next day, both my mother and father 
cornered me and announced that they needed to 
speak with me.  I knew what this was about. 
She'd betrayed my trust.  Two in as many days. 
They sat me down, and my father began, "It's 
normal for a girl to fantasize about her father."

	I was dumbfounded.  This was not what had 
happened.  The thought that I would fantasize 
about that five foot six inch cockroach made me 
squirm with a revulsion rimmed with nausea.  I 
got up in the middle of my father's triumphant 
lecture and tore out of there.

	"I'm telling the truth, Mom.  You said 
you wouldn't tell him, and you went ahead and 
told him.  And he did just what I said he'd do, 
and you believed him, just like I said you would. 
What if I'm telling the truth, Mom!"

	I didn't address my father.  I couldn't 
look at him.  And that is how it remained for the 
rest of his life.  I couldn't look at him.  I 
would look at the floor, or at a distant wall, at 
my hands, or out a window.  But I could never 
look at him again.  You could just about announce 
his arrival into a room by my looking the other 
way.  This is how I cringed through life, 
twisting my neck and averting my eyes.



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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net