TheBanyanTree: Life Stories 219

[Tobie Shapiro]

May 15, 200000007


Dear Hand Washers, Washers of Hands,

	We had a Mother's Day dinner at my 
sister's house on Sunday.  Every year on Mother's 
Day, we have the men, sons, and daughters take 
over and make a dinner for the mothers.  The gift 
is that we don't have to lift a finger.  The down 
side is that they're usually not so great at 
cooking, even though, oh yes, they try.  They do 
fancy things, not what we need, but what they 
expect will impress us and demonstrate their 
love.   So one year it was a roast suckling pig. 
One year it was Emu steaks.  One year it was a 
fru fru lobster dish that unfortunately, they 
didn't plan so well, and were cooked at least an 
hour and a half while they tried to get the rest 
of the meal ready.  This year it was venison. 
After the meal, I was in the bathroom washing my 
hands, just washing my hands, when a sudden 
piercing pain struck my left hand, the back of 
the hand, somewhere around the middle knuckle.  I 
actually screamed very loudly.  I hadn't been 
doing anything weird, not twisting my hand, not 
banging it on something, not anything out of the 
ordinary.  Just washing my hand, when BANG.  It 
was like someone had put a bullet through the 
back of my hand.  After I screamed, I figured 
that the assembled crowd would come running to 
save my life.  But no one came.  This means that 
if anyone is ever in that bathroom under the 
stairs and screams for help, too bad.  You're out 
of luck.

	I examined the back of my hand, compared 
it to my right hand.  There was swelling 
accumulating on the left hand.  Later that night, 
I noticed the faint beginnings of a black and 
blue mark.  I swear, I did nothing unusual.  It 
just happened out of thin air.  Here's the next 
oddity.  I still haven't figured out what motion 
of the hand to avoid.  I am typing this and am 
having very little problem.  It just aches a 
little.  I have lifted things, held cups in my 
hand, cooked dinner, carried on as normal, and 
have heard nothing from the hand but slight aches 
and an occasional mild jab.  I will admit that I 
am favouring this hand.  I'm scared of setting it 
off.  But I don't know how I would do that.  Last 
night I was flossing my teeth after dinner (does 
it always have to be after dinner, maybe?) and I 
triggered the searing pain again.  I let out an 
ear-splitting shriek.

	No one heard me.

	So, the good news is that when you are in 
the bathroom doing your business, worried that 
people can hear you, don't bother running the 
water in the sink.  Try screaming and seeing if 
anyone comes.  If someone comes running, then you 
can worry.  But bathrooms seem to be the worst 
place to have a household accident.

	This morning, the thing is even more 
swollen, and the discolouration is spreading. 
Maybe I should bring this thing to the doctor. 
And my doctor will peer at it from three 
different directions, then bring out a splint to 
immobilize the hand, strap me to it, and tell me 
to stay off the hand.  Maybe apply ice, twenty 
minutes on, twenty minutes off for a few hours. 
Take Tylenol.  Except for fetching the splint 
from the back room, I can do all that as well as 
any doctor.

	Feh.




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The Mad Realtor

	My realtor got angry at me because I 
didn't like the house she proposed to show me.  I 
had met my third husband, David, and wanted to 
divest myself of the house in Richmond Annex that 
I'd owned since 1973.  That was a wood frame 
three bedroom bungalow on Sacramento Street to 
the west of the great San Pablo Avenue, that 
wide, endless street that starts out south of 
downtown Oakland, goes north through Oakland, 
Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, Richmond, San 
Pablo, El Sobrante, Pinole, Hercules, Rodeo, all 
the way to the Carquinez Strait.  It just keeps 
going.  It's a Los Angeles street in the San 
Francisco Bay Area.  Even back then, it was 
plagued with strip malls, chain fast food joints, 
dilapidated store fronts, a smattering of 
frightening places where one could cash one's 
welfare check, or get an advance loan on the 
paycheck when ends didn't meet at the back side 
of the month.  San Pablo divided residential 
areas on its east from primarily industrial and 
commercial areas to its west.

	There, in that little pocket of Richmond 
Annex, there was an old fashioned homey area to 
the west of San Pablo.  That is where I bought my 
first house.  Or, rather, my parents bought it 
for me in a transaction I didn't quite understand 
then, and have since not comprehended fully. 
They put $5,000 down on this $22,500 house, and 
the loan was not a mortgage, but some other form 
of financial arrangement.  Without doing 
anything, but messing up my life, in the years 
between 1973 and 1984, the value of the house had 
burgeoned to $125,000.  This is what I insisted I 
could sell it for.  I was sure.  Prices had 
exploded in bay area real estate.  It was 
considered a great stroke of luck if you'd 
purchased a house back before the boom.

	My realtor also swore at me for expecting 
to get that kind of money from my house.

	"Damn it!  Tobie.  You are just not going 
to get that much money from your house!  Come 
down to earth!"

	I didn't come down to earth, and neither 
did the woman who bought the house from me for 
$125,000.  Then I had to be in the market for 
buying another house, closer in to Berkeley.  I 
wanted to come home.  The real estate market in 
Berkeley has changed since those days.  Back 
then, before the internet, before cell phones, 
before cognitive thought, realtors would pick you 
up at your house and drive you to the prospective 
property.  On the way in the car, the realtor 
would talk about the house you were about to see. 
My realtor had showed me about a dozen homes so 
far.  All of them were not to my liking.  I'd 
given her the parameters.

	Nothing on a busy street.
	At least two bedrooms.
	Nothing built after 1940
	No ranch style, in particular.
	No tract homes.
	Living room big enough for a piano.
	Formal dining room.
	Good sized kitchen with gas hook up.
	Yard not necessary.
	If there is a garden, house should be 
cheap enough so that I can afford a gardener.
	Safe neighborhood.

	J.J. was a moody little wench, a couple 
inches shorter than I, short cropped thick wiry 
reddish brown hair.  She did not wear the 
realtor's uniform.  No pants suits, no cute 
little dresses with a scarf made to look as if it 
were tossed spontaneously around the neck.  No 
piling on of make-up and modernistic jewelry. 
She wore peasant outfits: big blousey things with 
crude embroidery on them, broomstick skirts, flat 
shoes that bordered on being hiking boots.  She 
toted an olive green pouchy handbag with a big 
double balled snap on it and even though it had 
only the hand strap, J.J. wore it hoisted on her 
shoulder, the bag squeezing up tight into her arm 
pit.  She drove safely as long as she was looking 
at the road.  But more often than not, she was 
straining her neck, searching out properties. 
She'd point them out to me while the car veered 
toward whatever she was pointing at, the steering 
wheel following her finger.  It always seemed to 
me that we were going to wind up driving onto 
someone's lawn, or entering the property in 
question through the front window, nestling 
gracefully in the living room, the splintered 
glass falling out of the frame onto the roof of 
the car and then settling on the living room rug. 
And here's the thing.  J.J. would probably get 
out of the driver's side of her Toyota, urge me 
to come out, too, and invite me on a house tour. 
The owners of the house would remain in the 
living room finishing their coffee.

	"That one sold for $100,000 three months 
ago.  It's probably worth $110,000 by now."

	"That house looks good, but it's really a 
dump.  The toilet in the master bathroom is going 
to fall through the floor.  It's that rotten."

	"I like that house.  I've always like it. 
I'd love to get a look around the interior, 
wouldn't you?"  And for fear of further action, 
I'd keep my mouth shut.

	I'd point out properties, too.

	"There, J.J., look at that little 
Mediterranean with the two windows in the front 
and the tile roof.  I like that."

	She'd say, "Those Spanish tiles are 
impossible.  You're probably looking at a whole 
new roof job."

	"Look, J.J., See the pink stucco village 
house that looks like it could have a thatched 
roof?  I like that one."

	She'd say, "The electricity and plumbing 
in those old things is always ancient.  You want 
to tear a house apart to install new wiring and 
plumbing?  Forget it."

	She didn't like my houses, and generally, 
I didn't like hers.  But J.J. didn't adjust her 
tastes to her client.  She tried to alter the 
client's taste.

	I liked older homes.

	"Think of the maintenance.  Don't you want something more up to date?"

	I liked Mediterraneans.

	"I think you want something with clean 
lines and square windows you can replace if they 
break.  You shouldn't think of them as tract 
homes."

	So J.J. pulled up in front of a boxy 
1950s style house, with metal framed windows, a 
cement front yard and aluminum siding.  Aluminum 
siding.  It was hammered into the outside of the 
rectangle house, covering a cheap stucco 
exterior.  There were two steps at the end of a 
ten foot walk up.  The front door had a screen. 
She took a breath, turned to me.  "Let's go in. 
It's unoccupied.  Three bedrooms, an all electric 
kitchen, dining/living area in the front.  All on 
one level.  Convenient."

	I stared at her.  My mouth must have fallen open.

	"What?" she asked.

	"I don't like it."

	"You don't know that until you've gone in."

	"I can tell I won't like it.  I already don't like it."

	"But come on.  Go in and see.  You never know."

	"I know.  This is exactly what I told you 
I didn't want.  Why did you even bring me here? 
It's a waste of time."

	She sharpened her delivery and raised her 
soothing mellow voice.  "God damn it, Tobie! 
What is the matter with you?!  I looked all 
through the multiple listings, and I think this 
is a good house for you."

	"Don't scream at me, J.J."

	"But you're being unreasonable!  How do 
you know you don't like it before you've gone 
in?"  She shook herself all over like a wet dog. 
"I've never had such a client!"

	I sat there in the front seat, trying to 
stay calm.  I was only thirty seven.  That's not 
old enough to stay calm while being yelled at.

	"I told you clearly, really carefully, 
what kind of house I want, and what kind of house 
I don't want.  Why do you bring me to places you 
know I won't like?"

	She absorbed what I'd said, digested it 
and let it move straight through her.  "I'm not 
going to put up with this.  Get out of my car!"

	"But I need you to drive me back to MY car."

	"No ride.  I'm too mad!"

	"But I'm your client."

	"Not any more, you're not.  You're the 
most difficult person I've ever dealt with!"

	After some begging, she agreed to drop me 
off at a phone booth, so I could call a cab.  The 
short drive to the phone booth was pretty chilly. 
The cab driver turned out to be very nice.



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Tobie Helene Shapiro
Berkeley, California   USA

tobie at shpilchas.net