Men Are Just Tall Babies

Tall Babies

Copyright 2018 Ted Summerfield

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ISBN: 978-1-927418-28-4 

Table of Contents

Prologue

Sybil’s Death Notice

The Reunion

Life as a Larva

The Real Estate Years

Slimy Versus Savvy

Taking Stock of Life

Sybil Finds Her Stride

The Road to Ruin is Paved With Good Intentions

Prologue

Tall Babies is a work of fiction, with all that implies. It is a story of contemplation by Sybil on her public and private behavior as well as her life, and is offered as a testimonial to strong women everywhere. Sybil would be the first to admit she was a sociopath, which she did confess to me shortly before she died. I told her I’ve known that for years.

Tall Babies is about self-centered determination and absolute acceptance of ones’ imperfections. You can’t truly change who you are. But you can profit by it.

Sybil’s Death Notice

After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one. Cato the Elder (234 - 149 BC)

My morning started like every other morning since my long and bitter divorce - - checking the obituaries for my ex-husband’s name. Maybe that seems a little harsh, hoping to see your ex-husband die long before you, but a girl has to have something happy to look forward to every morning.

That’s when I saw my dear friend Sybil had died. Sybil Dunsmuir (nee Wallace) had died of cancer just one day short of her 60th birthday. Celebration of Life between 2pm and 6pm Saturday at the Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club.

Cancer. Well I’ll be. I never thought she’d die of natural causes.

Sybil was pleasant to look at, but I wouldn’t say she was beautiful, although some men and women would argue the point - including Sybil herself. Sybil was tall and thin, with a long neck like a fashion model, very small breasts, again like many fashion models, and walked like a duck - perhaps due to her years of riding horses when she was young or her years of ballet lessons. She stood 5 foot 7 inches tall, varied her weight between 108 and 113 pounds all the 40 or so years I knew her, had sharp, rat-face features without her makeup, dark-brown hair like Audrey Hepburn, and jade green eyes which mesmerized and tantalized men young and old.

Sybil and I remained friends for close to 40 years. She was actually a shy woman, and very protective of the true Sybil hidden behind multiple personas. I may well have been the only female friend she ever allowed within her protective shell. A protective shell befitting her sign of the crab, Cancer. I believe she hated men, even though her loving and nurturing of affluent men earned her wealth and power.

Perhaps I’m saying she hated men because of the time she and I went to a tarot card reader at the Little Budapest restaurant on South Granville. I often went there after school, for the delectable deserts, but one time I overheard the elderly Tarot card reader give what seemed to be a most accurate tale of things from the past and preview of things to come. I decided then and there to get someone to come with me and have our futures told. Somehow I managed to talk Sybil into having our fortunes told the following Saturday afternoon.

I paid my five dollars and went first. My reading was so mundane I felt like asking for my money back. My future would unfold like this; graduate, fall in love, get married, have 3 children - 2 girls, 1 boy - travel, 7 or 8 grandchildren, outlive most of my friends. These things would happen to almost all the girls I knew, almost like it was ordained.

Sybil’s reading was different. It actually frightened me. Sybil cut the cards and passed them to the aged woman who laid them out on the table. She stared at them for a seemingly long moment. I couldn’t stand the wait any further and burst out with, Is Sybil going to find love and get married soon? The old lady lifted her head and looked at Sybil and I sitting across from her. You will marry but it won’t last long. You will have many lovers, but none will last long because you hate men. You will die without ever achieving the love you seek. Sybil laughed heartily, or perhaps it was haughtily, before replying. I am but your reflection. The old lady took my hand and said Both of you, go. I’m tired. We walked out of the restaurant without stopping to get any takeout deserts, but I’ve often thought of the old woman and her saying Sybil hated men.

Maybe Sybil did hate men, but there were times I comforted her after a man had walked out on their relationship. Sybil loved those men, truly loved them, but each eventually failed to accept her faults and later abandoned her.

She would then analyze what she’d done and attempt to determine what happened and why, so as to not repeat that same mistake. But repetition there was, for while she was in love with one man she’d meet another man or go after another man whom she felt she could help in some way. To Sybil, the quickest way to a lonely mans’ heart was exciting romance and exquisite sexual fulfillment. Now that I’m writing this I’m wondering if the honest reason for the breakups was because Sybil did hate men, and not because the men were jealous or insecure, or incapable of understanding and accepting this incredible woman. Perhaps these men were indeed just plain stupid as I had originally thought. Perhaps there was some other reason. I don’t know.

Safety and security while dating wealthy men were most important to Sybil. One night not too many years ago Sybil and I returned to her home after an outing. She continued to drink white wine, with two little white onions in each glassful, and out of nowhere she told me she preferred married men to bachelors as lovers because they are safer. I asked what she meant. Sybil said married men are the safest dates as they have to be home at night and are highly unlikely to become overly attached to her. Oh they might love the sexual freedom she offered, might love the attention and her playful bathing of them, and might even feel a tinge of jealousy when she was out with another man. But Sybil knew all those concerns washed away with a slip of her hand along their cheek or thigh, for they knew her attention to them at that moment was exclusive.

Considering all aspects of Sybil, including her faults, it was her sureness and acceptance of who and what she was as a person which intrigued me throughout the years we were friends. She had spunk, was one of the most brilliant women I ever met, and one of the most outrageous. Over time I came to look upon our friendship as a safe relationship for her, a haven amongst the thousands of male relationships whose fingerprints littered her bed-sheets.

Yes, Sybil had spunk. She was truly remarkable. Sybil was a formidable foe when angered, for she had a vocabulary equal to the Random House Dictionary, was tenacious in her business dealings, possessed a photographic memory capable of recalling the most minute details or lyrics of a romantic song, and was the first woman I met who became a success mixing business with pleasure. A feminist in the likes of Cher and Katherine Hepburn, she was as independent-minded as both. She strove to puncture the societal notion that sex for women was purely for propagation in marriage and male sexual satisfaction.

But she could be cruel around pretentious people or men she considered weak, weak in the sense they failed to stand up for themselves. It was after her mental breakdown she changed her perspective of weak men from one of despise to one of their needing guidance toward personal and professional realization which only she could offer.

During her youth Sybil used her natural beauty like a Venus flytrap, trapping males then chewing them up with her intellect and business acumen. She despised superficiality and pretentiousness, and on more than one occasion at some lounge festooned with eager young lawyers and/or businessmen out on the prowl, she would get this rascally look on her face then announce to me she was ‘going to pop some pompous prick’. A welcoming smile, a nod, or a gesture of her hand aimed at her prey always resulted in acceptance. Before the night was out she’d left her inevitable life lessons like maggots gnawing on the greatly diminished ego of her target.

Some men