TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 184

[Tobie Shapiro]

March 20, 200000000007


Dear These and Those,

	My mother's birthday is on the 22nd. 
She'll be 87.  She's not too happy about that 
number, but then, as they say, it's better than 
the alternative.  My family always has a birthday 
party for the birthday person.  Usually, it's a 
dinner, because it has to be food centered.  So 
among all the different participants, we finally 
landed on Saturday the 24th for the date of the 
occasion.  It will be dinner, and I'm the cook. 
There will be 11 people.  So far so good.

	Discussions have been going on between my 
mother and me about what she wants for dinner. 
She obsessed about it, worried, fretted.  There 
are some people in the family who are on special 
diets.  It seems that this one's needs cancel out 
one thing, and the other person's needs cancel 
out the rest of everything.  So what do you cook? 
Two people are on gluten free, wheat free diets. 
One cannot have garlic or onions in addition. 
The other cannot have seeds of any kind (that 
means no lemon pepper because it usually has 
celery seed in it).  Really, how do you cook a 
main course without garlic?  So the idea is to 
save some out for those who cannot eat garlic. 
How do you cook those?  Plain, my mother said. 
For a cook, this is hard, because essentially, I 
am not going to be a cook, I am going to be a 
hospital dietician, and you KNOW how great 
hospital food is.  It's a good thing no one needs 
everything pureed yet.  So, we're planning and 
planning.  I decided on potatoes, yams and prunes 
(great old dish from the old country) for the 
"starch" dish.  My mother didn't like that idea. 
"But Mom, you're not even going to eat it.  You 
can't have any starch at all.  So why should you 
care?"  She ruffled her feathers.  She wanted me 
to bake potatoes.

	So everything is going along according to 
plan when I look in my appointment book and 
realize that this Saturday is the Special Needs 
Transition Fair.  This is a once in a blue moon 
gathering of all the agencies, government and 
otherwise that exist to assist developmentally 
handicapped individuals with the transition from 
school to independent life, from high school to 
college, from dependence to group homes, from 
school to jobs.  Meyshe's case worker at the 
Regional Center of the East Bay recommended 
strongly that I go with Meyshe to hear the 
lectures and collect pamphlets.  More to do.  The 
fair is from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. way down in 
San Leandro, about half an hour from here, or 
more.  I looked in my appointment book and 
groaned.  How am I going to go to this event, 
which is very important, AND be back in time to 
cook dinner for 11 people?  I told my mother 
about the conflict, and she started slamming 
doors, muttering under her breath and saying 
things like, "Fine!  I'll cook my own birthday 
dinner!"  This is going to be tough.  I can't not 
go to the Transition Fair, and I can't not cook 
the dinner.  And here, I was worried about 
finding enough time to get my mother a decent 
present.

	Simplistic.





 
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Someone Else's Broken Home

	Susan Mearns was my best friend in the 
fifth and sixth grades.  She lived with her 
mother, Barbara, her step-father, Jim, and her 
half brother whose name escapes me, but was 
probably John, in a big boxy mansion that was 
Barbara's property after her divorce from Susan's 
father, Walter Keane, the oh so famous shlock 
artist of the 50s and 60s who painted, 
exclusively, little children with enormous round 
eyes, one tear dripping out and down the cheek. 
These waifs would be standing in all sorts of 
landscapes as backdrop.  It was rumoured that he 
painted the background and the children, and his 
mistress/second wife, Margaret, painted the eyes. 
At any rate, he had a virtual factory plugging 
out the little orphans with the huge sad eyes, 
and he made quite a bit of moolah out of it. 
More recent knowledge corrects all this. 
Margaret was the one who painted everything, and 
she just let Walter sign his name.

	Susan didn't like her father very much. 
She said he forced her to paint when she saw him, 
and also, he was mean.

	Barbara and Jim, I knew pretty well, or 
at least I thought I knew them pretty well.  I 
was always going over to Susan's house after 
school, or she was coming over to my house. 
Their boxy mansion was divided into four large 
apartments.  When you came in the  massive front 
door, there was a huge entrance room with stairs 
straight ahead that went to the  two upstairs 
apartments.  To the right on the main floor was 
one apartment, and to the left was Barbara and 
Jim's.

	I thought Barbara was the nicest mommy on 
the planet, and I thought she was truly 
interested in me, in what I was, what I was to 
become, what went on in my head, what I found 
fascinating.  Once, I called Barbara to read a 
story to her from one of my mother's science 
fiction periodicals.  I can't remember the name 
of it:  Tales of the Weird, or Science Fiction 
Today, or Tomorrow Today, or Science Fiction 
Stories for Intelligent Literate People.  There 
was a story in this one issue that was nine pages 
long.  I know it was nine pages long because I 
counted them when I was considering reading it to 
Barbara.  Now this was unusual that I was told to 
call her by her first name.  Every other friend I 
had had parents whose names were Mrs. Reid, Mr. 
Young, Mrs. Clarke, Mr. Diebenkorn.  But Mrs. 
Mearns was Barbara, and I liked that a lot.  It 
made me feel that I was thought to be on the same 
level as the parents, which of course was a 
crock, but it felt good anyway.  The science 
fiction story was about a fat candle with marks 
on it designating years.  On your birthday, you 
were supposed to let it burn down to the next 
year, then blow it out.  But this candle was 
special (Tales of the Weird) because when the 
birthday boy forgot about the candle and didn't 
snuff it out, he wound up being ninety years old 
in an evening, or something like that.

	Until now, I never thought that story 
through as an adult.  And I see, for the first 
time, how ridiculous it was, how puerile, and, 
"Oh Gosh!"   Barbara listened to me read the 
whole nine pages to her over the phone.  We were 
both at our kitchen tables.  I didn't hear her 
head hitting the counter, nor sounds of her 
snoring.  I have to admire that in a mommy.

	Jim was an architect, I think.  What I 
remember most about him was the picture of a 
house he drew.  It was a thin, tall, concave 
little house with a tile roof and a chimney.  It 
sat on a hill with grass and flowers on it. 
There was a stone walkway to the front door.  I 
thought he was the best artist I'd ever known, 
maybe even better than my mother.

	Susan's half brother was a cute little 
thing.  He was not in the least brattish and 
seemed tidier than most kids his age.  Susan and 
I were ten; he was about four.  We were standing 
in the bathroom, and her little brother was 
sitting on the closed toilet seat with his legs 
folded, his knees right under his chin.  He was 
crying.  He had red and white welts on his 
calves.  Susan said to him, "Tell Tobie what 
happened."  He said, "Mama belt."

	That evening I was invited to dinner.  I 
felt honoured to be included, and sat at my place 
hoping I was being polite, a good guest.  Then 
Barbara brought in the main course which was 
corned beef.  I had a history with corned beef. 
Of all the foods I've ever eaten, there are only 
three that I cannot abide.  Licorice, which I 
cannot learn to like no matter  how hard I try, 
bananas, to which I have a full fledged food 
aversion, and corned beef, which for some reason 
makes me puke.  Guaranteed.

	I looked at the slab of corned beef on my 
plate, and felt trapped.  It would be rude to say 
I didn't like it.  It would be suspect just to 
leave it there, untouched.  It would fool no one 
if I cut it up into pieces and scattered them 
around my plate.  So I forged ahead, and to be 
the perfect guest, I ate it.  I ate the whole 
slab.  But then I had to run to the bathroom and 
throw up.  Barbara followed and asked if I were 
going to be all right, and I told her, 
whimpering, that corned beef made me vomit.

	"Then why did you eat it?"

	"To be polite," I said, wiping my mouth on a hand towel.

	"This doesn't add up," she commented, 
mostly to herself.  It was the first time I'd 
heard that expression, and I like it.

	"I'm not good at arithmetic," I said, and she laughed.

	The summer came, and during the summer 
Susan had to stay with her father, Walter.  She 
called him, "Walter," no, "Daddy," or, "Dad," or, 
"my dad," or any variant.  Walter.

	"I have to go stay with Walter," she told 
me, and grimaced as if she were about to take a 
big big bite out of a slice of corned beef.

	"Will you be gone all summer?"

	"I get to come back in August."

	She disappeared to wherever Walter Keane 
had his palatial residence, somewhere in 
California.  I didn't hear from her, and I busied 
myself with wasting the summer.  Then in July, I 
got a call from Barbara.  Susan was with Walter, 
and she wasn't happy, so he'd asked her what she 
wanted more than anything else.  She told him she 
wanted to go to Disneyland with Tobie.  This was 
the official invitation.  The parents must have 
talked it over, because this wild dream was going 
to happen.  Barbara told me to tell Susan when I 
saw her that she loved her very much, she hoped 
she was having a good time, and she would be very 
happy when Susan came home.  I promised I'd tell 
her.

	Walter met me at the Oakland Airport. 
This is a man I'd never met before.  He was 
intimidating, forceful, not homey or cozy, a 
thorough adult with very little child left in 
him.  We took a helicopter to San Jose where we 
were to catch a plane to Balboa.  The helicopter 
lifted off the ground at a decided angle and 
headed south, over the salt flats, over the 
sparsely populated land between Oakland and San 
Jose.  I didn't quite understand the sequence of 
events.  I thought we would be in the helicopter 
much longer than the short time it took, and when 
it started to descend toward the ground, I 
thought that we were about to crash.  I was only 
ten years old, and death was about to claim me. 
I looked out the window watching the ground 
coming up to meet us, and I said to myself, 
"Well, I guess I'm going to die," and left it at 
that, just a shrug of acceptance.  It's odd how 
imminent death is eminently unfrightening.

	When the copter landed, I was surprised 
to be a survivor, and I told Walter that I was 
glad we didn't crash.  I liked being alive.  He 
didn't respond.  He poked me ahead of him toward 
the airplane that would take us to Balboa, where 
Walter had a house.  From there, we'd drive to 
Annaheim.  We'd be staying at the Disneyland 
Hotel.

	Susan and I shrieked when we saw each 
other.  We were standing in the living room, a 
modern house, walls of glass and sharp corners. 
We were bouncing around the room when I 
remembered what I'd promised Barbara I'd tell 
Susan.

	"Oh.  Before I forget.  Barbara wanted me 
to tell you that she loves you very much.  She 
hopes you're having a good time, and she'll be 
very happy when you come home."

	I didn't have time to close my mouth 
before Walter lurched forward and slapped me hard 
across the face.

	"You ungrateful little bitch!" he shouted.

	I cried, and Susan took me off to her 
room.  After that, the entire vacation became a 
blur.  I don't remember Disneyland.  I don't 
remember the trip back.  I don't remember Walter 
doing anything else but striking me, his grown up 
arm swinging on a sharp arc to deliver the blow. 
It's as if he wiped out the whole visit with that 
one gesture, wiped it clear off the face of the 
earth.

	I couldn't figure out what I'd done 
wrong.  What had I done wrong?  There had to be a 
reason.  I thought maybe fathers in general hated 
me and wanted to do me harm.  But it's hard to 
avoid them.  They keep cropping up here and 
there; they come along with the mothers.



 
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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net