Mitchell Smith (42 page)

Dear Sonny, It hasn’t escaped my notice, and probably not yours either, that your nickname is a boy’s, and has been since you were a baby. I thought I’d mention that here to assure you it doesn’t mean a thing. It was just the easiest nickname out of Sonia, unless you wanted to advertise TV sets.

When we were in Albuquerque, we talked about my sending you a letter or two about stuff you wanted to know about my not-very-exciting youth, complete with booboos, and some things about my work, and what I’ve learned from it. Truth letters about stuff that was too boring or embarrassing for us to talk about.

I think that was a good idea, because the one great thing about my profession is that sometimes you can deal with people without using any lies at all. That means that sometimes, at least where sex is concerned, it’s real life, and not pretend life. People call it The Life, because of that. So here Wiges.

I’ve found-I guess it’s no secrefl-that people lie all the time, they lie to themselves even more than they lie to other people, and they lie about sex and love most of all. Of course that’s not all there is to life, either, but it’s a big chunk, and it’s the part I know about.

Let me say, right up front, that there was a time a few years ago I was as dishonest a whore as you could find, and didn’t mind betraying the people who came to me for pleasure, or out of desperation. But I caught myself turning into what I didn’t want to turn into, one of those shits that abuses pussy power, and I’ve never done that again.

Now, I don’t lie to people about those things, and they usually don’t lie to me about them, either, so I know a few truths about sex and so forth that most people don’t know, or are scared to find out. This doesn’t make me any better than they are, or any happier either. It’s just my profession, and it means that my life is as different from most people’s as if I was living on another planet entirely. But it wasn’t always, because I, like everybody else, started my life doing a lot of lying to myself about sex and love and related subjects like friendship and money, until being a whore-which is exactly what I am-taught me to lie as little as possible to other people, and not at all to myself. I don’t recommend that you try to do the same, because it’s a hard road, and you’re not suited for it, and you don’t wind up any happier, darling, without these lies, except there’s an enormous load of shit off your back forever.

It’s a lonely life, too, because everybody else, or almost everybody else, is pretending about those things, and if you don’t pretend with them, they get upset.

And that’s where what risks there are in my business Fome in. So, in my life, true friends are the most important thing, except for you.

Take a very intelligent, sensitive man in his forties, a really important person in his business, or a doctor, a complicated human being with a wonderful education, married to a charming woman for a lot of years, still loves her very much, some nice kids doing very well.

When a man like that is sitting on the side of my bed, naked, making silly noises, his head thrown back, the veins in his neck standing out, out of his mind with pleasure just because yours truly is kneeling on the rug in her blue bathrobe sucking on his penis, when you see that, you see something about people that has to do with their not admitting what they are. And don’t get the notion that only goes for men. Some women come to me, too, some that have the courage to do it, or are so lonely they’re just about out of their minds, poor things. And they talk to me for hours, and pay me a great deal of money to sit and listen to them. They talk about their children and their husbands, they talk about everything-and then sometimes they’ll get up the nerve to ask for sex, but often not.

“Well,” you’re saying, “Mother’s just saying that people are animals, that’s all. And she’s taking a long

time to do it.” But you’re wrong. People aren’t just animals. People are wonderful animals, sweetheart, but they pretend not to be antinials, and that’s what causes a great deal of trouble! That’s the lie that makes all the other lies necessary, and about death and other things, too, not just sex. That’s the big lie that’s the foundation of the house of lies, but I try not to live in it.

People come to me and pay me to spend a little while in the house of truth. In my house, they can tell me anything they want to about anything they want. They can talk about what they really like and what they don’t like. Or they can talk about how much they really love other people, or how much they hate them. For example, I spend a lot more time listening to people talk about their parents than I do getting spanked or screwed in the butt, which is the kind of thing people like to think prostitutes spend most of their time doing.

So, as an outsider who is paid to listen to people tell the truth about what they really want, and paid to do with them what they really want to do, I found some truths that might save you trouble. The fact is, though, even after many years working, I know very little about people.

They are all mysteries. But what little I’ve learned, I’ll tell you, and I’ll start with my boring biography, because that’s where you start, too!

First thing is, keep in mind that for better or worse-and because of my profession many people would say it was for the better-you are an entirely separate person. You couldn’t be me if you tried, any more than I could be you. You popped out of my belly, and I loved you because I couldn’t help it by instinct or chemicals or whatever, but I don’t know if we would even have liked each other if we just met somewhere. Lucky for our relationship we didn’t just meet somewhere!

But I’ve found in my work that a lot of people never realize they are entirely separate people from their parents, and go through life mooning over them and whining about them as if they were unfaithful lovers. And of course, 2”

the reverse is even worse. A lot of parents, mothers particularly, have nothing to do but be mothers, so they stick to that forever, until their children are sick of it and sick of them.

I was an ordinary little girl—skinnier and smaller than most of the girls I knew. I didn’t get breasts until I was thirteen, and then they weren’t much. I was crazy about the Cats-an’-Jammers and I was in love with Tony Creski, who was lead guitar for Infirmary, and I suppose you never heard of any of them. There were a couple of months when I would have been happy to die for Tony Creski, if I could have died in his arms with him crying and looking down at me. I used to spend a lot of time daydreaming, and I would use the mirror from my brush-and mirror set to look at my vagina, especially after I got hair down there. I masturbated, you bet, as I hope you have been enjoying doing. I also occasionally picked my nose and occasionally I would eat the result, which, as YOU probably know, is nothing much in the good-taste department, either way you take that.

I never read anything I didn’t have to for school, and Chicago schools were not great then, anyway. Reading is something wonderful I found when I got sick of television.

Your grandparents were very nice people. They weren’t drunks and they didn’t beat me up, and my dad didn’t try to get in my pants. You would like them a lot if they were still around.

My dad was a pipe fitter in the union, and we owned half a house with a family named Quinn. Quinn worked for a specialty tire company. The Quirms were O.K., and I did play doctor with their boy, Sean, but he was too young to know what to do when we tried it, and got to be such a wimp later I didn’t want to try it again.

You will be relieved to know, sweetheart, that your supposedly sexy mother finally did sleep with a boy when she was sixteen. He was a basketball jock named Norm Witt, and he was very, very cute, and I was crazy about him. We had first sex on his brother’s bed upstairs while his parents were out somewhere and we IL

were supposed to be sitting for his little sister, who thank god went to sleep early that time.

sex was good for me, and didn’t hurt me any more than getting my ears pierced. I didn’t come all over the place, but it felt very nice. The nicest thing, though, was having Norm Witt naked in my arms. I guess I just about hugged that honey to death. He was much f too skinny, and while he was working away on top o me, puffing like The Little Engine That Could, I was imagining us married and me feeding him these wonderful meals to make him stronger and show him how much I loved him.

There was no lie about any of that; that was all truth to me. When they say men and women are different, that’s no lie, either, though it’s a troublesome truth, especially to women. But it’s the truth just the same, so if you love a man, you better love men, or you’re in for a bad time.

I’ll get into that later, how they are different from us, being really different animals in some ways.

My dad died of a stroke on the job, and they called my mom at home and came and told me in school.

Then, two years later, after I graduated, my mom married a salesman named Mark Shuski, a Polish guy, and a nice man. He was very nice to me, and I guess it was the best thing that could have happened to her.

Now, I know what you want to know. You want to know what happened with Norm Witt. Right? Well, I’ll tell you, and it’ll be no surprise. That brown-eyed sweetie betrayed yours truly with Trudy Pavlich. “What?”

you’re saying. “My mother aced out by a Trudy?!” But it happened, and I’m damned to this day if I know why.

It certainly was not anything I did. I was that tall asshole’s slave. I gave him the answers in geometry. I did everything!

Let me tell you about Trudy. She was one of those girls who look great for a couple of years. Lots of baby fat, and goldfish cheeks and big blue eyes. Then, after a couple of years, the baby fat turns to lady fat. At least I hope it did in her case. If you want to know what I think really happened, I think what really happened is whatever chemical Norm and I were breathing or farting at each other simply changed by a molecule or two.

It makes most people very uncomfortable to think that way, though.

They’d rather believe that something complicated is wrong I with them and can be fixed.

Whereas I’ve found that if something complicated is wrong with a person, it can never be fixed, and just has to be lived with. (Did Vou notice the use of whereas, there, Sonny? Isn’t that-nice?) Men and women like to think they can be repaired like cars and be their own mechanics, and that’s what keeps my professional rivals and colleagues, the psychiatrists, in business.

O. K. Almost over the where-I-came-from bit. You’ve been very patient, and you better have been very patient, because I’m getting a severe case of typewriter fingers.

I graduated from high school with good grades; I was fiftl in the class, and it was a big school. Then I decided to become a career woman, and went to the Great Lakes Secretarial School, since regular college wasn’t a big idea on Tremaine Street at the time. My mom and Mr. Shuski helped me out with the tuition, and I worked part time at a hairdresseT’S, where I got my first lessons in how tough it is to keep a lie styled.

Now, here comes some news that will upset you, but a wise man once said: If you chew, and chip a tooth, you’ve bitten truth. Actually, it was I who said that, just now.

You have a brother, darling, three years older than you, and I don’t know where he is. He was adopted away, and I named him Tony, probably after Tony Creski the lead guitar, although I hate to admit it.

Which is another lesson, which is that we never grow up. Anybody who tries to act like a real grownup is the biggest baby of all.

It’s a shock, isn’t it? And you can blame it on the cowardice of a woman who has known better than to keep that kind of secret. There are a few lies, you see, still surviving in my life. They live on the fear that if you know too much, you won’t love me anymore. Well, you have a brother.

I had a love affair, my second one after Norm, with a man who was the brother of the man I worked for on my first job. His name was Rudy Kraft, and he was a nice sort of guy, middle-aged, who was divorced and going crazy drinking. He used to want to play house more than anything.

He’d pretend we were married. I suppose that was the first time I saw so clearly how much pretending people have to do. He’d call me dear and honey, but not the way you call somebody that when you’re hot for them and having a wonderful affair (Speaking of which, I got a call last night from George.

He said to apologize to you for the crummy postcards, but the only other thing worth sending were the fried potatoes, and he didn’t think they’d travel). Anyway, Rudy dealt with me as if I was his wife, and always wanted me to sleep over, cook him breakfast in the morning, that kind of thing.

I don’t know why women learn so much from men, and men usually don’t learn a thing from women, except to be more careful next time. Anyway, Rudy asked me to marry him after we’d been going together about two weeks, and he kept asking. I thought that probably any man who wanted to get married that much was going to be a problem; it’s not a natural state for men.

So, I said no, and I wouldn’t marry him even after I was pregnant. And by the way, I got pregnant using that so-called spermicidal foam. Don’t you be a dope.

If you’re having sex with one of those cute spoiled boys up there, then make him use those condoms I gave you. In another year, if the doctor says O.K., we’ll get you a prescription for the pill, one of the low estrogen ones. In the meantime, if you have gotten up your nerve or fallen in love, make the kid wear that condom!

Of course, if you’re playing kissy with some girl, it’s not a problem.

There was a tremendous drama in Chicago that summer, let me tell you. I went to the Catholic Unwed Mothers, and told them I was Catholic, which I wasn’t.

One of the nicest things about my parents was they didn’t load me down with that religious nonsense, flying carpenters and camel drivers and volcano gods and so forth that help so many scared people get through their days. I had plenty of time to read the Bible waiting for Tony to be born, Old and New Testaments-which would be sad if they weren’t so funny—centuries and centuries of wishful thinking adding up to a big pile of horse manure.