Mitchell Smith (50 page)

Dear Sonny, Mothers are good for something. I found a copy of Green Horses. I just finished reading it, and I’ll send it up to you so you won’t have to wait until I come up. I thought it was a beautiful book, but sort of sad. A child shouldn’t have to wait for death to reunite her parents, even in a jungle paradise. You know me. I’m a life nut’

Life is everything, and death is nothing, and that’s the’

truth . And I know that because like everything alive, I’ve been dead, zero, nothing, up to just thirty-seven years ago, when I was conceived.

Bef6re that, back to the beginning of the universe, I was dead as dead can be, and so were you, and so was everybody else - And it wasn’t interesting at all.

But there’s one thing about death that is interesting, and that is it’s in the back of most people I s minds all the time. Men, women, and kids, too. They know they’re going to die. It’s there all the time in’a little place in their heads, and a lot of what they do-work, sex, you name it (including, I suppose, civilization)-is just something to take their minds off it. That’s what I think, anyway.

I’m glad y6u called, and we were able to talk about MY first letter. I know you think I treated it all too lightly-your father and so fOrth-but I treat most things lightly, and I didn’t want to make the whole thing a tragedy for you when actually it was more like a face. Hell—it was a farce. And I didn’t mean to underrate your father. He wasn’t an ordinary man. He was much braver than ordinary. Most People are afraid to adinit to half the things they want, or want to do. He wasn’t.

And I suppose if you really want to visit him in Chicago, and he hasn’t moved and is still alive, you won’t be too disappointed. I wouldn’t be in a big rush about it, though.

I’m gJad you don’t miss your brother, Tony, but you better keep in mind that the Tony I wrote you about was the easiest kind of Tony for me to think of without regrets. The real Tony might be a boy I’d love. Ah, the geometry of the heart!

I’m embarrassed that you noticed your oh-so-truthful mother skipped a part of the truth in -discussing her profession. Two questions. One: Does selling sex lower its value to me, personally? Answer: It doesn’t affect it either way. Two: Doesn’t it make me feet crummy to go to bed with ugly, nasty, weird, disgusting people?

Answer: It makes me feel crummy to go to bed with nasty and disgusting people, but not with weird or ugly people. And, as far as the nasties and disgustings go, unlike a wage slave-a teacher, or a waitress or a nurse, for example-I never deal with such people twice.

Now, what’s this? Is your mother suggesting it would be a great career for you? Your mother is not. Why not, if there’s nothing wrong with screwing for a living?

Well, the “Why not?” is simple. You don’t have enough of a sense of humor.

“Yes I do, yes I do, yes I do!”

No, you don’t, no, you don’t, no, you don’t.

Now, on to a really touchy subject. A really touchy subject. There are a lot of secrets between parents and kids that should stay secret. It isn’t true that parents need to know everything about their children, and it’s even truer that kids don’t need to know everything about their parents. In the first place, everything is never everything. In the second place, it’s none of their damn business. However. However. It does seem to me that a kid’s schoolwork is their parents’ business. And it also seems to me that the parents’ work is their kid’s business, because that’s how the kid is getting fed. I think kids should grow up understanding very clearly what their parents have to do to keep them safe and fed and educated.

However, my profession is an odd one, is an illegal one, is loaded with all sorts of fears. So, I’ll leave it to you. You decide how much you want to know about my business.

If I sold cars or insurance, I’d be a little ashamed for you to see some of the stuff I’d be pulling on people in the course of a day’s work. As it is, however, although I’m nothing special in other departments, I am a good, A

honest whore, and wouldn’t be ashamed for you to see me practice my trade, though it might embarrass me.

Now, you’re saying, “Gross, gross, GROSSP-but I think that what you’re feeling is scared, scared, SCARED!

Isn’t that interesting? Why is everybody so frightened about such a usual thing? Why do they find it so terrifying, so disgusting, so secret, when they don’t mind eating pizza in front of everybody-wiggling their tongues while they stuff the toothed end of their tube like mad? (Isn’t that great? I stole that “toothed end of their tube”

part from a woman poet named Misrahi. If you want, I’ll send you the book.) But I mean it. It’s a serious question.

As far as my profession goes, it’s just business-and sex, and the only thing weird about it is that both parties are getting exactly what they want, and aren’t wearing suits. Anyway, you decide. And if you ever do want to see this mysterious, gross, terrifying, disgusting, criminal stuff that keeps you supplied with yucky school uniforms, Delius tapes, and strawberry floats, just tell me. I have a client named David, who’s sweet, intelligent, great-looking, four years younger than yours truly-in fact you’d probably fall in love with him-who’d think it was very funny to have a disapproving schoolgirl solemnly observe her aging mother earn an honest dollar.

Anyway, think about it. If it’s all just too much, and the most nauseating thing a mother ever proposed to her innocent daughter-then forget it. Though the truth is, sweetheart, let’s face it, you’ve been having your period now for a lot longer than a year, which means that nature considers you a grownup. But it is a scary notion-scares me, too-and if you feel it’s too scary, then forget it. Whatever you feel is probably right for you, although I do believe all kids would be better off if they knew that sex was angel food cake-not dog shit.

“Well,” you’re saying, now that you’re over the shock, “Well, I notice she didn’t want me to watch her and George!” And you’re right. That’s love. It’s just between him and me.

I told you when I started these long, long letters that I would try and tell you some truths I’ve noticed maybe more clearly than some people might who are in different professions. Now, these are my truths, and some of them may not turn out to be true for you. But I’ve worked hard to learn them, so don’t be too quick to say your freaky mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

But before I get to people, let me tell you a truth about money. Money and love, love and money. Add health, and you have the three great worries. Money.

You will probably have a great advantage over me.

You will probably earn legal money. When you do put as much as you can aside every month into some government-insured investment. Start when you’re young. When you’re in college. Do it. That money will compound into a fortune, and you will someday thank your old mother for letting you in on a fact that most people are too dumb to figure out: Time, plus interest, equals big bucks.

Money and people. Old folks use money in place of sex, dealing with other people. If they haven’t got money-unless they’re very lovable-they’re in trouble. Men use money to push other people around.

Women use money to try to stay safe. Here’s my advice on money: Earn as much as you can without devoting your life to it. Start saving early.

Spend the rest and have a ball.

O.K. Human beings. Let me start with women. Sigmund Freud wanted to know what women really want.

Well, here’s what I’ve noticed most women want, but not many get. One: A man to love them who’s a little smarter and stronger than they are, but not smart enough pr strong enough not to love them. Two: Something important to do. Three: To take care of people they love. Four: The admiration and envy of other women.

Five: Children. Six: Money. Seven: A maid. Eight: To stay young forever. Nine: To be a perfect size eight.

Ten: Not to get cancer. Eleven: To suffer, but not too much.

I better add fast that I know some women who don’t want any of the above, except not to get cancer. But these are the exceptions that prove the rule. And I better add just as fast that young girls have slightly different “wants” than the above, and you know more about that than I do. Still, when you deal with women, you might keep this little list in mind. The reason we’re such great complainers is that these are hard needs to satisfy, and it is definitely not a good idea to stand between a woman and the satisfying of even one of them.

What else about women? Well, they’re pretty and soft. They smell good almost all the time. They’re fun to have sex with, if you keep in mind it isn’t the big obsession for most of them that it is for a man. And they were designed to be baby buckets, like it or not, do it or not, be it or not.

Anything else your wise mother has noticed about women? Yes. They’re wonderful company, for a while.

Now-men. A good friend of minesays that men can be satisfied by a blow job, kids by a peanut-butter sandwich. And, in a way, she’s right. Men, like kids, enjoy specific pleasures very, very much. Physical pleasures. Atmosphere doesn’t mean much to them, although admiration does. O.K.—so, what do men really want?

One: A woman who’s not quite as smart and not quite as strong but who’s smart enough and strong enough to love them anyway. Two: To b’brave.

Threc To have something important to do that everybody knows is important to do. Four: The admiration of women, the envy of other men.

Five: To be able to screw every good-looking woman they see. Six: Money.

Seven: To take care of people they love, or people they don’t love who are grateful. Eight: To be able to screw every good-looking woman they hear about. Nine: Not to get a heart attack. Ten: To want something else, something they can never have.

Well, you suspected as much, and grownups are always going after these shitty things, or those silly things, right? Wrong. Most grownups don’t go after what they want, at all. They do what their parents and friends think they should do; they do what they think they should do; they do what most other people they know are doing, and they hope that somehow something special will come to them. It’s my experience that waiting and dreaming like that tends to make most people sad. They make their own disappointments that way.

Don’t misunderstand me, sweetheart, when I talk about things like women wanting to be a size eight not that they don’t. And speaking of which, I would like to see you lose a couple of pounds. Nothing gigantic, just a couple of pounds. Look out for food; it’s the most addicting drug of all. Of course I don’t mean women yearn only for the dress size. I mean they yearn to be all right. To look nice. Not to be fat, or ugly, or too thin, or anything that people are going to laugh at or pity.

And the same is true of all those other silly and not so silly things people want. Behind each want are a lot of other wants, a lot of other fears that pop out now and then in weird ways. One person wants number Three most of all, and another one decides he’d die for number Six.

People’s wants are like combinations to a lock, but the combinations keep changing.

Which brings me to love. Being in love, being loved, makes people feel good about themselves, as you well know (or should, since your mother loves you like crazy), and since that’s what most people lack, they need love a lot. Let me tell you a whore’s secret: People come to me the first time, to come. The second time, they want some love.

I try my best to give them their money’s worth both ways, but with affection for the second part, not real love.

I knew a man … Wait a minute, let me tell you a story. I knew a man who was very special to me. His name was Larry; he was in the shipping business, and he claimed he used to play semipro baseball, which could be true. He was a sweet, sweet man, not very smart, though I suppose he was good at business. He would tell these awful jokes, not funny at all, and start breaking up in the middle of telling them and not be able to finish, he was laughing so hard. Well, here was a darling man, really handsome and physically just perfect-which you will discover is a mighty rare thing and one of those really unusual men who are naturals in bed. He wasn’t ashamed to do anything, he never worried about anything—he just loved it. He lived in bed with a woman as if she were a brandnew duplex apartment and he was crazy about it and was checking upstairs and downstairs and into every cabinet. Most men are a little worried about women’s bodies, their vulvas, vaginas, their assholes, and so forth. They’re a little worried about some surprise here or there.

Not this Larry.

Well, I fell in love with him. In love with a john.

And the moment I did that-fearless Larry fled. He hadn’t been afraid of my body, but he was scared to death of Sally Gaither. Well, maybe I’m lying to myself. Maybe he just didn’t like Sally Gaither. Whenever a man runs like hell, we like to think he just wasn’t mature enough to appreciate us.

So, I got a lesson that hurt. As far as men are concerned, a woman is a two-part person. The body, and the rest. For example, a woman meets a man, and thinks, “Does he like me? He has nice eyes. What a wonderful voice. - - - He looks in really great shape … so strong! He would come home to me flying in from Europe to our place in Connecticut, and I’d be there with the kids, and that wonderful smile as he came in the door.

Right?

A man meets a woman, looks at her face, her legs, her butt, then starts trying to imagine her pussy, in detail. What she’s like with her panties down. What she’s like with her panties off. What sounds she makes during sex. Then, after that, while they talk, he decides if he likes her. If sfie’s nice. If she’s good company …

intelligent.

It’s the two-part problem. If a woman is lucky, she has a man who loves both parts of her. If she’s unlucky, he doesn’t. Men are always being blamed for this, but that’s like blaming the grass for growing. And of course the reason men divide women into fuck and friend, is that they are divided just that way themselves; their cocks are semi-independent