TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 215

[Tobie Shapiro]

May 8, 200007


Dear Hearts,

	We are trying to get Mint to eat.  Feyna 
crushes up her appetite stimulants into a tiny 
bit of food and tries to get her to eat it.  If 
she doesn't, Feyna has to take up the horrible 
struggle to stuff the pill down Mint's throat. 
This is not easy.  Mint is unflappable, calm, 
limp even, slow and yes, a little dull usually. 
But bring her to the vet, or try to get a pill 
down her throat and she turns into a monster. 
It's like trying to administer help and aid to a 
Tyrannosaurus on speed.  Suddenly too big and 
nasty to approach sideways wearing armor.  She 
scratches, growls, bites, contorts herself out of 
your grasp.  She becomes her polar opposite. 
Feyna's already gotten marked with long red lines 
on her arms and wrists.  What can you do for this 
cat?  We could take her to the vet for another 
round of tests, maybe a liver biopsy, for the 
price of a PC, and what would we learn?  We'd 
learn maybe why her liver is enlarged.  But maybe 
we wouldn't.  Feyna wanted a break from this, and 
asked me to take over last night so she could go 
and stay over at a friend's house (Alex).  I told 
her I couldn't do it.  It is her responsibility, 
her cat, and mommies don't get breaks.  I don't 
want to be the one on the watch if Mint dies. 
How would Feyna feel if she went out and spent a 
happy night, joking around and fighting with 
Alex, if when she returned she found out that 
Mint had died?  She'd never forgive herself.  And 
how would I feel being the caretaker at the time, 
unable to do anything.  Having to report to Feyna 
that her cat is dead?  I told her that when Mint 
is on the mend, and out of danger, I would take 
over, but not now, when it's crucial.  She 
understood.  She cried.  It's too much for her. 
She wants to hide while it all goes away.  And I 
understand that, too.  If I hide, will my 
troubles just miss my head and keep on going?  If 
they did, I would find myself a good deep place 
to hide and stay there for a long time, cause it 
would take a long time for my troubles to pass by.





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What Makes My Sister Tick

	We don't talk much about my sister, Dana, 
because it might make her mad, and then we'd all 
be in deep deep trouble.  When I was growing up, 
I was really afraid of her.  She had a wrath that 
was quick to fire up, wild at its peak, slow to 
cool down and sharp as a razor.  No one wanted to 
be on the receiving end of that.  She used to 
tease me a lot, but every sibling gets teased. 
This was dedicated teasing, though.  A lot of 
thought went into it.  That was mixed in with the 
premeditated persecution: shoving me out of the 
way so she could have her turn, jumping off of 
the see saw so I'd come crashing down hard on the 
ground, throwing heavy, dense objects at me. 
Even as I write, I have to convince myself she is 
not reading this.  If she read a word, she'd 
poison my food, or beat me up.  Yes, even though 
I'm almost sixty.

	It seems clear and an easy diagnosis to 
say she was jealous of me.  After all, she was 
queen until the new baby came along.  But the 
jealousy didn't mellow with time.  She still 
belittles me in front of others.  At my brother's 
ceremony to receive his Ph.D. from Stanford, his 
in-laws, my mother, my children, my husband and I 
were standing on the grass chatting.  Dana 
announced how she'd always wanted to get a Ph.D., 
but all she had was two master's degrees.  She 
waited a beat for the awe.

	"Academic achievement runs in the family. 
Of course, Tobie never graduated from college.  I 
guess it isn't for every body."

	I winced, but so did everyone else in 
sympathy for me.  She was the same, you see, when 
we were young.  She brought home her college 
boyfriend to meet the family.  I was sitting in 
the living room, reading my homework.  She 
ushered Eric through the front door and into the 
room.  She stood him before me.

	"This is my LITTLE sister," she sneered, and dragged him away.

	She found it great fun to play whatever 
tricks she could on me.  Remember the long 
stalked weeds - we called them goatgrass, though 
they may have been something else.  They would 
rise out of the ground in a single arcing stem, 
and the last few inches were like wheat.  They 
would sway in the breeze.  They were everywhere. 
Weeds.  In clumps.  Right by the sidewalk, out in 
a field, among the legitimate grasses.  You 
couldn't get rid of them.  She pulled two of them 
out at the base of their stems and held them up 
to me.

	"Look.  You wanna see a magic trick?"

	I did.

	"Okay.  I'm gonna put these in your 
teeth."  She crossed them so that they were side 
by side with the wheat like tips opposite each 
other.  She placed them between my lips, 
positioned them in back of my front teeth, the 
ends emerging out of either side of my mouth.

	"Voila!"  She pulled away from my mouth 
hard and fast on the stems so all the wheat wound 
up in my mouth as it was scraped off the stalk. 
That doesn't seem so awful, but it was the way 
she laughed.  It was scary, like this was great, 
but it wasn't enough.  Of course, I was furious, 
but the worst I could do was shout, "I hate you!" 
That didn't do any good.  And, besides, it wasn't 
even true.  I loved her, loved her sorely and 
wanted her to love me.  I kept hoping she'd be 
nice to me.

	There were things she did that scared the 
living bajeebees out of me.  Her potential was 
wicked.  Please don't hurt me if you read this.

	She would stand out on the playground at 
school, hovering over kids who were squatting in 
the dirt playing marbles, or talking together. 
She'd make a hard fist and hold it firmly, 
directly above their heads, so that when the kids 
stood up, the fist would be waiting for them. 
They'd essentially hit themselves with her 
knotted hand.  My mother got called to school.

	She had fun experimenting with ants, 
stomping on them, leading them into traps.  And 
here's the clincher.  She used to take a 
container of salt outside in the back yard and 
pour it on top of slugs and snails, just to watch 
them foam.  It made my hair stand on end.  What 
would be the equivalent of salt that she could 
pour on me?  Would she do it?  I mean, given the 
chance, would she?  I had no way of knowing, but 
she was awfully smart.  She could probably do the 
research necessary to find out what chemical 
compound would work on me.  There I'd be, 
frothing on the cement, my insides curling out 
and my outsides dissolving into a runny slime. 
And she'd be laughing!  Laughing!  What would she 
tell our parents?  I said she was awfully smart. 
She'd think of something.

	In my family, pretty much, whoever 
behaves the worst gets to write the rules.  So 
she and my father were the ambassadors of 
protocol.  My father's rules:  Justin can do 
anything he wants to anyone.  Everyone is 
required to make excuses for him.  No one must 
use the words, "insane," or, "crazy," when 
referring to him.  No one is to speak the truth. 
My sister's rules: it is never all right to 
scream at Dana.  She will hurt you.  It is never 
all right even to defend yourself against Dana. 
She will find a way to make you wish you hadn't. 
You must never tell Dana that she was mean, or 
dangerous.  You must shake in your shoes at her 
every gesture.  Do not confront her.  And stay 
away.  You may suffer your wonderment from a 
distance.  These are the rules of Shapiro. 
Observe them and weep.

	I know she was not happy.  She was not 
popular at school.  There were times when she had 
no friends at all.  And this caused her grief. 
My mother would try to explain to Dana how she 
could be nicer to the other kids, and then they 
might like her better.  But she didn't get it. 
She had the same frightful unpredictability that 
my father had, and a similar gift for creating a 
personal, preposterous reality.  Neither had any 
brakes on their behaviour.  But she had more self 
awareness.  So whereas my father was happy in his 
narcissistic oblivion, Dana was not.  She was 
filled with self loathing, probably the most 
basic thing we have in common.

	Over the years, she's mellowed somewhat. 
It does still seem that her reflex is to hit, 
swat, snap, scream, attack, but she does that 
less frequently.  The power she holds over my 
mother, and it's a very effective way to control 
her, is to threaten to cut off relations, leave, 
take her love and loyalties elsewhere.  She hangs 
up on you, slams doors on her way out.  This 
gives me the opportunity to be the good daughter 
to Dana's bad.  But see, if I'm going to be the 
good daughter, I can't let on about any desire to 
punch her lights out.  Good girls don't have 
those kinds of thoughts.

	What're YOU lookin' at!?





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-- 




Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net