TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 182

[Tobie Shapiro]

March 17, 200000007


Dear Members of the Inner Circle,

	It is Shabbos.  That's my day of rest.  I 
don't take on any work.  In fact, from sundown to 
sundown, I don't engage in business.  Last night, 
my mother called me to the phone.  The man on the 
line called me by my first name, a presumption 
actually.  He said, "Hello, my name is Jeffrey. 
I'm from the Motorcycle Policeman's Association . 
. . "  This was a new one.  I hadn't heard of 
them before.  But before I took it to my mind to 
go over the reasons not to give them money, and 
how to relay the information to poor Jeffrey, I 
remembered the trump card.  "Excuse me, this is 
Shabbos, and I don't do business on Shabbos." 
The guy apologized profusely, said, "Have a good 
evening," and hung up.  I should think of some 
special appelation for every day of the week and 
use it.  "Excuse me, this is Router's Day, and I 
don't do business on Router's Day."  "Excuse me, 
this is Sacred Monday, and I don't do business on 
Sacred Monday."  "Excuse me, this is Organically 
Grown Sea Sponges Day, and I don't do business on 
Organically Grown Sea Sponges Day."

	The times that I've told a telemarketter 
that it was Shabbos and I didn't do business on 
Shabbos, have been many.  Almost all of them 
recognize the word, "Shabbos," as something to do 
with religion, and religion in this country is 
holy cow.  "I'm sorry, I can't serve on Jury duty 
because I have to be available to my synagogue 
for community service on that day."  "I'm 
terribly sorry, but I can't take part in the bake 
sale, because I belong to the First Glutenless 
Church, and I can't partake of baked goods." 
"I'm sorry, I can't pay you back, because since I 
borrowed the money, the Lord has told me that I'm 
not to pay back any loans until the second 
coming."  Somehow, I don't think that one would 
go over.  "Oh yeah?  Well, here's Toothless Al, 
and if you don't pay up, he's gonna rearrange 
your face."

	"I'm sorry, you can't rearrange my face 
because the Motorcycle Policeman's Association is 
waiting outside."




                  ŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠ
                     *******************************************************
                   ½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½




Portrait

	My father was ugly as well as toxic.  The 
way he carried himself contributed to his 
homeliness, but even without his cowering 
posture, hunched over with his head thrust 
forward and his poochie abdomen pointing ahead of 
him, his darting eyes and constant look of guilt, 
even without all that, he would have been 
considered ugly as sin.

	He had a round bald spot that emanated 
from the epicenter of his scalp, but had a curl 
of black and grey hair at the top of his 
forehead.  He used a standard regulation comb 
over to disguise the blatant fact that he had a 
bald spot the size of his skull.  Wheeeeep, and 
the bald spot was covered by strands of hair from 
the other side of his head, thrown over the nude 
expanse of skin like nonpareils on a muffin.  You 
can still see the surface of the muffin; the 
nonpareils are only ornamental.  Everyone knows 
it, but we keep quiet to preserve his ridiculous 
vanity that he is still thirty with a full head 
of black hair.  Wait.  He was balding 
considerably at thirty.  Forget it.  He was 
involved in unspoken lies about the condition of 
his head.  It was no secret.  He didn't have 
hair.  But no one mentioned it.

	As if hair would have made him handsome. 
He had a sloping forehead, a large proboscis with 
a hump on it, just under the bridge of his nose. 
His eyebrows were pointy little things, just as 
you would draw eyebrows on a devil were you 
assigned the task.  I suppose his forked tail 
didn't help.  He dressed accordingly, too.  It 
was not random enough to claim that he was colour 
blind, or just didn't care.  There was a purpose 
in wearing powder blue polyester slacks coming 
just above his ankle, and a fire engine red 
polyester short sleeved shirt with a button 
missing here or there.  Then the socks that were 
not quite matched.  Two different shades of dark 
brown, or one rust and one red.  It upset my 
mother and this must have fueled his fashion 
statements.

	He wore a large leather pouch on his 
belt.  He kept a note pad, pens and pencils, a 
few gadgets and some pills in it.  He wore it so 
that his belly pushed it out at an angle to his 
body.  One time, at a fourth of July barbecue 
that David and I held, my friend Earl was struck 
by my father's pouch and said, "My, what an 
attractive colostomy bag."  The pants, 
themselves, were hoisted up above his waist about 
a few inches under his breasts, and the belt was 
cinched in tightly so that his flesh pooched out 
on either side of the belt.  As he got older, the 
pants' waist and belt were cinched in higher. 
This seemed to be part of an aging process.  The 
belt kept moving higher and higher.  At the point 
where the waist of his pants were raised finally 
above his head and the belt cinched in like a top 
knot, he would be declared dead and you could 
dispose of him like a kitchen garbage bag with 
string ties.

	He walked purposefully, just a hair 
faster than his feet could keep up with, so he 
stumbled forward, always rushing, bumping into 
things, wounding his environment.  His hips were 
very wide, and his squarish ass was big.  When he 
was anxious, which was frequently, he ground his 
teeth audibly, his jaw rigid, his eyes popped 
out.  When he was angry, which was frequently, 
his whole face turned dark red, and the veins in 
his neck stood out like the cables of a 
suspension bridge.

	He was not easy to look at.

	And I didn't.  That was how I survived 
his presence.  I just didn't look at him.  When I 
spoke to him, I kept my eyes on my hands, or in 
my lap.  When I was forced to look at him, I 
winced in pain.

	I'd seen pictures of him when he was a 
young man, and he stood out from his 
contemporaries.  They all looked like young men. 
But he looked like an overgrown eight year old, 
the buck teeth and awkwardness, the delight in 
being crude, in shocking the grown-ups, the 
suspicion that he was planning something not 
nice.  He had that look in his eyes.

	As he got older, he shrank.  The hump in 
his back became more prominent.  He bent over 
more, compressing his chest, his stomach and his 
abdomen.  That is the portrait of my father, the 
man I dreampt about for months after he died.  I 
would tell him, "You're finally dead!  Get out of 
my dream!" and he wouldn't be able to speak.  I 
was aware that the only reason he had appeared in 
my dream was that my mother had invited him, 
because she couldn't face the fact that he was 
dead.  As time went on, he appeared in forms less 
and less effectual until finally, he was just a 
bust of himself being wheeled around on a 
portable serving table.  His bust was mounted on 
a plate laid on top of a white tablecloth.

	Eventually, he faded out altogether, and 
went away to reside in his coffin in the Jewish 
section of the Home of Eternity Cemetery, on a 
little grassy slope near the base of a large 
shade tree.  No one goes to visit his grave.  No 
eternal flame flickers there.  No flowers in a 
vase.  No physical tribute to the deceased.

	We try to keep beauty alive.

	My father was an ugly man.




                  ŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠ
                     *******************************************************
                   ½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½½


-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net