TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 168

[Tobie Shapiro]

March 3, 20000000007

Dear Free Range Chickens,

	Feyna demonstrated her cutlery last 
night.  I was her first trial presentation.  I 
bought something.  She's a good saleswoman.  The 
demonstration involved using some of our own 
knives for comparison.  And, of course, our own 
knives are crap.  Even the ones that aren't crap 
are crap compared to the amazing Cutco knives. 
Thing is, I use a Chinese cleaver for most 
everything.  It slices, it dices, it scrapes, it 
caries, it crushes, it pulverizes, it smacks 
things like garlic.  It's your all purpose 
kitchen knife.  And here was Feyna with all these 
sharp knives, showing me just how perfect was 
their construction, and how sharp their blades. 
In fact they were so sharp that I cut my thumb 
just by (stupidly) running it along the blade, 
very gently.


	Unfortunately, the only thing I could use 
was the "table knives", or steak knives. 
Villainman took off with our good knives.  Well 
that makes sense, they were his parents' set.  So 
I am steak knifeless.  Oh, but not anymore!  I 
have six table knives in a block, and for extra, 
they just gave me a spatula spreader.  It turns 
out that Feyna was the first person in her group 
to make a sale, so she gets a prize, too.  She 
was exhilarated by the experience.  She went to 
bed happy.  My next task is to write up a list of 
people that might enjoy a demonstration, and some 
expert saleswomanship.  How many friends do I 
have that I can lose?




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Out of the mouths of babes

	My mother had artist friends.  My mother 
was an artist, actually.  I say, "was", because 
she long ago put her brushes and tubes of paint 
to pasture.  But the house has dozens of her 
paintings hanging on the walls.  I was always so 
proud of her.  I could tell my friends when 
giving them the tour of our house, "My mother 
made all the paintings."  I was in absolute awe 
of her abilities.  She could draw, paint, make 
props for theatre companies.  She could write 
well, she could sing, and she even played the 
piano when she was little.  She was smart, 
brilliant even, she went to medical school, and 
she was funny.  She could also laugh until tears 
went streaming down her cheeks.

	Once, when I was about ten years old, she 
met an artist friend of hers for lunch, and they 
brought me along.  I was excited to be in the 
company of artists.  People in the arts were my 
heroes.  This friend was nuts, as were most of my 
mother's friends.  But this one was particularly 
nutso.  She was convinced that everything she did 
was a work of genius.  She did abstracts, and 
once brought a big painting on a piece of plywood 
to our house because my father had an electric 
table saw, and she had him cut the painting into 
four equal smaller paintings.  So she had 
magically produced three more works of great 
genius to try to sell.

	I just tagged along.  The adult 
contingent had selected the restaurant.  They 
chose Jule's, a cafeteria type place very close 
to campus, on Telegraph Avenue.  Jule's had been 
there when my mother had gone to Cal from 1937 to 
1941.  It was one big huge room with huge 
reproductions of Picasso nude drawings on the 
walls in white on gray.  They were robust women 
drawn loosely and minimally.  Very gestural, the 
artists would say.

	We stood in line with our trays and 
ordered our food.  Then we carried our trays to a 
table and sat in each other's company.  I 
listened to what the artists had to say.  For 
once, I was quiet.  I was usually a noisy 
customer, full of babble and speak.  I had to be 
shut up forcefully by repeated entreaties so 
others could carry on.  But because I was in the 
presence of artists, I quieted down considerably. 
I can't remember what the artists got for lunch, 
but I got a hamburger and a chocolate milk shake, 
very thick.  While my mother and her friend 
talked about whatever elevated things they 
discussed, I busied myself with my hamburger. 
Ketchup.  Ketchup and mayonnaise.  I took the 
sour pickle slices off.  But I left in the onion 
and lettuce, the tomato too.  I unhinged my jaw 
to stuff this mammoth assemblage into my child 
sized mouth.  When I'd been conquered by the 
hamburger, I embarked on the milk shake.  The 
milk shake, I could suck down with great 
enthusiasm.  Meanwhile, above me, the 
conversation went on and I tried weakly to attend 
to it.  Grown ups talked about politics and 
history.  They cited references and proved 
points.  They were travellers in the big world, 
the world that swarmed above my head.  I would 
grow into it some day, but then, at ten, a guest 
of the artists at Jules Cafeteria on Telegraph 
Avenue in 1957, I was far too small for it all.

	I finished my lunch, and sat in my chair 
waiting for something to happen on my level.  But 
it didn't.  I swung my legs forward and back in 
my chair.  I looked at Picasso's women folk.  I 
played with the napkin holder.  I wrapped my feet 
around the legs of the chair, hooking my toes 
about the front two legs.  I swung my feet some 
more.  For me, it was time to leave.  They hadn't 
even finished their lunches.  I looked around the 
cafeteria at the very older and wiser diners. 
They were mostly students at the University, but 
to me, they were adults.  They were part of the 
great siblinghood of grown-ups who ran the world 
and knew what to do.

	I sat there being very patient.  I could 
feel how patient I was.  I was patient to the 
point of expiration.  I diddled with my 
silverware.  The knife could fit in between the 
tines of the fork.  The spoon could work as a 
lever and lift the knife and fork, separately or 
together.  The room echoed with the noisy chatter 
and clatter.  My mother and her friend weren't 
paying any attention to me at all.  I decided to 
yawn.  A big cavernous yawn was called for.  I 
threw my head back and opened my mouth.   A deep 
rolling, rumbling, reverberating belch came 
thundering out of me.  This greps was the greps 
of a corpulent gray haired, balding, sloppy old 
fart, who had lungs that could hold the air of a 
thousand deep breaths.  Someone who could holler 
one long, "Yee haw!" that would go on for longer 
than it took the western sun to set and the 
cattle to go to sleep.  It lasted forever, and it 
belonged to me, a tiny ten year old.  It shut up 
the whole restaurant.  There was complete silence 
as I finished my eructation.  I was like the 
miniscule jalopy in the circus act that fifty 
clowns climb out of.

	My mother and her friend stopped what 
they were doing and saying and stared at me in 
disbelief.  That moment of awestruck wonder 
lasted for several beats before they burst out 
laughing.  I shrunk into my turtle shell and 
tried to make my head disappear.  I was not going 
to disappear.  Everyone had noticed me now.  The 
whole of Jule's Cafeteria was staring at the 
wunderkind.  They'd been forced to.  I was the 
little girl who burped.  A legend.  An artist!



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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net