Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man (15 page)

COME AS SOON AS YOU CAN. ALL PUNS INTENDED.

Sexual & Western Union

32

219 Maple Road

Richmond, Va.

July 23
^rd

Mr. Laurence Clarke

c/o Gumbino

311½ West 20
^th
St.

New York 10011

Dear Ex,

You make a mistake, lover. Up to a certain point, your letters really were getting to me. So I thought I might drop in on you and see if we couldn’t have fun in an old-friend-type way.

But you loused it up, because I guess you really don’t understand little Lisa at all. You never understood me when we were married, so how you could understand me now is a good question.

Maybe orgies and switcheroos are what you and Miss Fettuccine and your little schoolgirls enjoy. Maybe that’s very much where it’s at, and maybe my generation gap is showing. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a shit, as Rhett Butler
really
said.

Lisa is just an old-fashioned girl. I’m afraid. All I want is one man who knows he’s a man and who’s man enough to make me know it.

For a while there, even though I should have known better, I actually thought you might turn out to be that man after all. Maybe that’s because you’re a writer and tend to come across better on paper than you do in person. I don’t know. But it was a mistake on my part, just as every man I meet turns out to be a mistake on my part, although I honestly sometimes think they’re all really a mistake on God’s part and not mine.

I know you think of me as a ballbreaker. You’ve made that perfectly clear often enough. Well, you’re not the only man who ever came to that conclusion, and maybe I am a ballbreaker, but if so, it’s only because every man I meet has unbelievably fragile balls. Hit a high note and they shatter to bits.

What I am, and all I am, is a woman. And what I want, and all I want, is a man who knows what to do with a woman when he finds one. A strong man, Larry. A man with real balls on him. A man that I can’t break. A man that would break me instead, and put the pieces back together so that I could feel whole and complete for the first time in my life.

I don’t know if Daddy read the letter before passing it on to me. A cute little game on your part but I’m afraid I’m not playing, because I really don’t care. I’m sick of Richmond, it was a mistake to come here, but where the hell else would it be any better? I’d go to the moon if I thought it would do me any good.

I’m afraid you and Miss Arrivederci won’t have the pleasure of eating fried rice out of my cunt, or whatever it is you’re doing these days.

Ciao,

Lisa

33

c/o Patricia Kettleman

14 Fairfax

Albuquerque, New Mexico

July 23
^rd

Dear Larry,

Perhaps this is old news to you, but I have left Steve. I must have been insane to have anything to do with him in the first place. I guess I built him up in my mind as some kind of perfect person because I needed an excuse to get out of our marriage, which had turned bad for both of us. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I won’t go into details. I was already beginning to realize that he was not the person I thought he was, and then one night he did something absolutely inhuman. I can’t even tell you what he did. I don’t want to think about it, let alone put it on paper. Let me just say that it was horribly painful for me and that he went right on with it in spite of all my pleas.

I would ask you to take me back, but what is the point of it? We are no good for each other. In fact, the last thing I want is to look at a man. I always thought Women’s Liberation was silly, but they really have got something. Men exploit women constantly, in and out of bed. It’s a natural law of nature, though. All the picketing in the world isn’t going to change it, but that doesn’t mean a woman has to like it.

Sometimes I think I should have become a nun.

I’m staying with an aunt of mine. Patricia Kettleman. I don’t think you ever met her. She was widowed three or four years ago. One of these days, if I get up the courage, I just might tell her how lucky she is.

Fran

34

MEMORANDUM

From: Laurence Clarke

To: Laurence Clarke

Date: 26 July

Subject: Various subjects

Aha!

L.C.

35

c/o Gumbino

311½ West 20
^th
St.

New York 10011

July 26

Mrs. Lisa Clarke

219 Maple Rd.

Richmond, Va.

Dear Lisa:

I apologize. For what? For everything.

Lisa, your letter was an eye-opener. I wish you had said what you did years ago. Things might not have worked out any differently between us—you’re absolutely correct in your estimate of the unbridgeable gap between us—but at least I might have understood you better. Although perhaps it’s true that the only way we can learn things is to be told them at the proper time.

I’m glad, though, that you finally let go and told me things about yourself I should have known years ago. You are a fine person, Lisa, and I can only say that I hope you someday meet a man who is man enough for you.

The world is a hell of a mess, isn’t it? It’s the damnedest thing, the way things never work out right for people. People keep falling in love with each other, or thinking they’ve fallen in love with each other, or at the very least, falling in bed with each other, and they keep turning out to be wrong for each other and all they really do is fuck up one another’s lives.

I’m not speaking for myself at the moment, as my present situation is ideal. Rozanne and I
are
perfect for each other, although I can certainly see how either of us would be quite impossible for any other human being.

As a matter of fact, what brings on this miasma is word I’ve just had from Steve and Fran. Despite the tone I may have taken in my letters to them—a callow sort of sniping I now see was quite unworthy of me—I really thought Steve and Fran would be right for one another.

You see, Fran left me because I wasn’t man enough for her. I knew that at the time, whether or not I wanted to admit it to anyone, myself included. And I knew she certainly wouldn’t have that problem with Steve Adel. I don’t know how much you know about Steve, but the one thing that was always a sore point in our otherwise ideal friendship was that I envied him his manhood. There’s an inner strength about him, not always evident at first glance, that is really awesome.

Few women notice this right away. Of course, Steve’s not the typical make-out artist. It takes a special sort of woman, a strong sure-of-herself woman, to attract him in the first place. He was never the type to bother with round-heeled pushovers. Mattress girls, he would call them, though not without a certain degree of sympathy.

I thought Fran had met her match in Steve, and while I may have begrudged them their happiness, I also envied them.

What I never stopped to realize was that, this time, it was Fran who was overmatched.

He turned out to be literally too much for her.

Isn’t that irony of the most bitter sort? Fran’s in New Mexico now, living with a widowed aunt and thinking of entering a convent. Thinks all men are beasts because she finally experienced a real man. And Steve’s stuck in Cuernavaca because she ran off with all his money, and anyway he has no place to go. From his letter, he sounded pretty miserable. I gather he hasn’t met anybody interesting. All sorts of available broads, but he was never the type to waste his time on available broads.

Who would have thought it would end this way?

Well, enough of this outpour of melancholy. Once again, I’m glad I’ve taken the time to work it all out on the old typewriter. I owe the Messrs. Smith and Corona a monumental debt. I’ve shaken the mood, and I only hope the result won’t be to shove you down into a depression. I still believe that there’s a right person for every person, and though it may seem Pollyannaish to say it, I’m sure the day will come when you’ll find the man that’s right for you. And perhaps one day even Steve will find a woman equal to him.

Got to cut this short. Jennifer’s coming over for dinner
à trois,
and I want to get this in the mail before she arrives.

In haste,

Larry

36

c/o Gumbino

311½ West 20
^th
St.

New York 10011

July 26

Mrs. Laurence Clarke

c/o Kettleman

14 Fairfax

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Dear Fran:

I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for you. Yet, in a way, I’m glad that things turned out as they did, because you know now that life with Steve would have been utterly impossible for you. In that sense, Fran, it’s a damned good thing you found out as soon as you did. Imagine if you had married him. Imagine, if you will, if you had had children by him!

You know, I almost blame myself. Steve was my friend, and I have this loyalty thing that renders me blind to a friend’s faults. Even when I’m aware of them, I don’t let on to others.

If not for this, you never would have started an affair with Steve. I could have told you, for example, that the guy has a Nietzschean attitude toward women. You know the passage in
Zarathustra
about women being like dogs? The more you beat them, the more they love you? He used to walk around quoting that in college.

To put it bluntly, the man is a sadist. I don’t know what the brute did to you, but I can make a pretty good guess. If I’m right, you would never have had to worry about getting pregnant.

Well, let’s not dwell on unpleasant things. Although you’re absolutely right that our marriage is over—and was over, in many respects, well before you first started sleeping with Steve—I still feel responsible for your welfare. Maybe responsible is the wrong word for it. I care for you, Fran, and I’d like to see you get yourself back on the right track. An affair right now would be the worst thing for you, you’re dead right about that, but at the same time it’s not going to do you any good moping around with some old aunt in Albuquerque.

May I make a suggestion? I think what you need is some time in the open air, time to think, time to relax, time to reactivate your old interest in horseback riding under a clear and unpolluted sky. And, coincidentally enough, there’s a place right near where you are now that I happen to know of, and I can’t think of any spot in the world that would be better for you.

It’s the Bar-Bison Dude Ranch, and the mailing address is Altamont, New Mexico. Unlike so many resorts where you would have men constantly chasing after you, this is a genuinely relaxing place. Do me a favor. Hell, do yourself a favor. The minute you put down this letter, pick up the phone and call Bar-Bison and make a reservation. And go there right away.

I promise you it’ll do you a world of good.

Larry

37

c/o Gumbino

311½ West 20
^th
St.

New York 10011

July 26

Miss Mary Katherine O’Shea

and Miss Barbara Judith Castle

Bar-Bison Dude Ranch

Altamont, New Mexico

Toothsome Merry Cat and Succulent B.J.:

I am enclosing some correspondence from and to my wife, Fran. I think these letters are self-explanatory. Perhaps the summer will turn out to be more entertaining than you may have guessed.

Ellen was here recently and sends you both her love. Alison is due shortly with what she describes as an erotic painting for our apartment. And I had a letter the other day from Dawn and Naughty Nasty Nancy. It looks as though Camp Whatchamacallit is working out well, although Dawn had a fairly hysterical scene with a lifeguard. But rather than spoil it, I’ll let her tell you herself when she sees you.

While nothing’s certain in this vale of tears, I think you can expect a visit from my wife before long. You professed to wonder what she was like, and now I think you’ll be able to find out. The name
Merry Cat
may be familiar to her, so herself might start calling herself just plain
Mary
, and B.J. can get used to
Barbara
. We all have to make occasional sacrifices.

Oh, hell, I don’t have to teach you angels how to scheme. Like teaching birds how to fly.

The ball’s in your court, kittens. Have fun.

Uncle Larry

38

BAR-BISON DUDE RANCH

ALTAMONT

NEW MEXICO

“Where Nothing’s Barred Except The Bison”

August 8

c/o Gumbino

311½ West 20
^th
St.

New York 10011

Hi, Uncle Larry!

This is secret agent Barbara speaking. Say hey, next time you give the Dolly Sisters an assignment, make it a tough one. We were all excited and couldn’t wait for your better half (hardly!) to get here. We kept hatching one outrageous plot after another and secret agent Mary would whisper something to me and we would both burst into a fit of hysterical laughter and before long they were all giving us funny looks. Even the horses thought we were crazy.

And they were
right
!

All seriousness aside, Uncle-Poo, we checked the registrations and saw she was really coming and really started in hatching schemes, figuring that this would be a real test of our Notorious Powers of Seduction.

And then there was nothing to it.

Larry, that woman is a lesbian. That woman managed to live twenty-nine years of her life without ever suspecting the truth, and it evidently took a cock up her ass to give her the idea, or at least that was what she kept talking about, how men give you sweet talk and pretend to be in love and all they want to do is bugger you and split your asshole open. Of course she found a more genteel way to say it, but that was what it added up to.

Merry Cat made the original pitch. She started off telling Fran how she didn’t like the way all the cowboys bothered her (which they don’t, the schmucks are all either faggots or else they just want to marry rich divorcees, or both) and Fran came right back with a line about how men are all beasts, and from then on it was almost a question of who was going to seduce whom.