Letters to Jenny

by Piers Anthony

  What’s that? No, don’t tell me you didn’t mutter anything; I heard it. What was it? Something about getting out—you mean to say you’re nervous about going out, after all this time there? Well, sure, that’s understandable, but Jenny, you surely don’t want to stay there forever! There are things to do outside, like school and homework and chores—let’s start this sentence over; I don’t like the way you’re nodding agreement. There are things to do outside, like petting cats and shopping for pretty things and watching VCR movies and using your computer to paint pictures and staying up late and sleeping late and all that. Besides, your mother’s getting lonely; she says there are too many stupid males and not enough smart females at home.

  You don’t want to leave your friends there? You don’t have to. You can come back to visit them. You’ll probably be seeing some of them anyway, because you’ll have to report for therapy sessions and such. You can go to the Five and Ten Cent Store (yes, I know, now they are five and ten dollar stores, but in my day they were priced right) and buy them little presents. Or just go out to the garden, where your flowers are languishing for lack of your presence; they feel so inadequate when you aren’t there to smell them. Pick a pretty flower for someone, or a pretty seed. No, don’t laugh; seeds can be pretty. Here, I’ll prove it: I stopped by the big magnolia tree that had three flowers on the one little branch that extends onto our property, and none anywhere else—I tell you, the magnolias like me!— and took some of the seeds from its seed-ball. They are bright red, some with two sides or three sides, like grapefruit seeds. Here are two of them: one for you and one for Cathy. Hi, Cathy! (I discovered this past week that one of my earlier letters told you to say “hit” to Cathy for me; that was a typo. It should have been “hi.” I hope you didn’t hit her!) Maybe if you get little pots you can plant them and they’ll grow. Then you can return fifty years later and see this giant magnolia tree growing out of the hospital window, providing pretty white flowers and pretty red seeds for all the patients.

  Meanwhile, how are things here? It has been a dull week, except for a couple of things. One was a power failure last Saturday: lightning hit our line and blew out our transformer and our pump. It took them five hours to replace the transformer. I read John Dollar by candlelight. That’s a novel by the wife of Salmon Rushdie, the man the Ayatollah threatened to kill. It’s the kind of book the critics like, which means that real people don’t like it. It’s about girls your age, but don’t you read it; it is truly ugly and shocking in places. But what could I do? It was night without power, so I read. Now I’m reading Stephen King’s The Gunslinger. You don’t want to read that one either. Anyway, it was Sunday afternoon by the time we got the pump replaced; it actually worked on Saturday, so we didn’t know, but then it started glitching. The lightning had glitched it up at several places. Because it was Sunday—and the following day a holiday—that’s always when these things happen, as your mother well knows—we had to pay double time. It came to $761. All because the lightning arrester didn’t work. I would make a pithy comment, but your delicate shell-pink ears would turn an indelicate color.

  Then on Tuesday I started out by cleaning the algae from the pool, then putting Dvorak letters on my downstairs computer keyboard so I wouldn’t have to keep carrying my upstairs keyboard down and maybe dropping it. See, the big letters are all red now, with the old QWERTY letters in small black. Do you notice the difference in this letter? (You’re supposed to say yes, you do, in a very calm voice.) Then I wrote to my current Ligeia girl, who I think is gradually becoming less suicidal. And I had a visit by two English girls. One was the daughter of my British agent, visiting this country. She remarked how odd it was to be driving on roads where all the cars are on the wrong side. Right. I don’t normally entertain visitors, but there are some few exceptions, and the daughters of my agents are one of them. That agent just sold my novelization for the movie Total Recall in Japan. Of course it wasn’t my name that did it; it was that it’s a Schwarzenegger movie, and the Japanese are big on such movies. And I’ll only get some of the money, eventually; the publisher and the movie company get most of it. Still, I’d better stay on that agent’s good side. She stays on my good side too, because the reason she is handling the foreign rights for this book is that I asked for my own agents, American and Foreign, on it, and the motion picture company agreed. The company didn’t have to, because it owns the rights, but it humored me. It’s a sixty million dollar movie, probably next year’s big block-buster. Yes, I’m sure your daddy will take you to it, humoring you, though there isn’t anything in it that would interest him apart from unremitting action and violence and a slew of luscious bare girls. Unless he likes science fiction; then he can enjoy the planet Mars scenes, and the phenomenal alien nuclear plant there. Remember, I didn’t write the movie, I just adapted the script to make it a novel. But I did add some significant material, if they care to use it. So I talked with my agent’s daughter, who is an environmentalist, and her friend, and they had lunch with us, and I showed them our deep forest and horses and lake with the water lilies on it. If you ever want to visit, Jenny, I’ll do the same for you. So it was three and a half hours in all. Then in the afternoon your mother called. What? How many pages did she talk this time? I lost count. A dozen, at least. She told me that they measured you this way and that, and that you’ve grown two inches, and that, uh (blush), you’re giving up childhood and trying young ladyhood. Next thing we know, you’ll be joining the Adult Conspiracy. Ah, well. At any rate, you are much on your mother’s mind, Jenny. I suspect you already knew that. My daughter Penny also visited from college, bringing her latest papers for me to copy-edit. That took me half a day, most of it Wednesday. Anyway, that was my Tuesday; as you can see, it was duller than yours.

  Say—I looked out the window, and there’s one of our big box turtles—actually a gopher tortoise—walking along our drive, past our house. We have a number of them here, and we like them. Elsewhere in Florida they are trying to protect them, but development keeps encroaching, and they have to catch them and move them to safer regions— which are in turn encroached on by development. Bad business. But our turtles will remain unencroached on.

  Slew of enclosures this time, maybe a slew and a half. A page on kids and the news, with several kids who have pets; one has 14 cats and wants a white rabbit. I guess you know about that. Article on insect metamorphosis, surely old stuff to you, but pretty anyway. One on a man whose legs are paralyzed, but he hopes to walk with magic boots. Article on questions kids ask, such as whether cats really have nine lives. One on the other wildlife of Citrus County—that’s where I live—and how development is disturbing it. Alligator Express. Curtis Picture of butterfly with flowers. And one of a drum that sounds liquid; is that how you play the drum? And of course the two magnolia seeds. No, don’t eat them!

  SapTimber 15, 1989

  Dear Jenny,

  Growl! Things have been aggravating me at the rate of about one a day, and just now another. No, it wasn’t having to write to you; this one was because last week—the same day I last wrote to you—I wrote to a fan in Texas who is supposed to be me for a day. I sent him my “Author” sheet and recommended Bio of an Ogre for more, as it is coming out in paperback momentarily. So today I get a letter from him saying he needs just a few more bits of information, and has a list of 17 questions, most of which can be answered by the references I already gave him. He’d rather waste my time than bother following my advice. Well, he is about to learn something about the way I respond to those who ignore what I tell them, and perhaps it will help him personify the Ogre.

  What else has been aggravating me? Why do you want to know? Maybe you should tell me what’s been aggravating you. Come on, you can tell me! Oh—the wheelchair chafes what part of your body? Maybe you’re right; it’s not a fit subject to get to the bottom of.

  Okay, what aggravates me is that last Sunday I had to take two hours to go out and sweat myself to death hacking out sandspurs from my runnin
g path. Sandspurs are the Mundane equivalent of curse burrs; they stick in my socks and ouch me with every step, so I have to stop and take them out, and then they stick in my thumb. Ouch! By the time I hacked them all out, swatting swarms of biting flies at the same time—the burrs and flies are in cahoots—I was so soaked in sweat that I had to change all my clothes. Next day my legs were tired and I had a slow run—and some more sandspurs reached in from just beyond where I’d hacked and still got me. Today it was worse, and I had to stop several times to dig the #$%&*!! things out, sticking my thumb several times. Then yesterday morning I was eating my breakfast, which consists of a bowl of cereal, rolled oats, brewer’s yeast, wheat germ, nuts and milk—the rolled oats swell up later and keep me from getting hungry before lunch, see—and reading the newspaper (which I tend to pronounce nudes-paper, but there aren’t any nudes in it), when my hand came down and just caught the edge when I wasn’t looking. Flip! The thing landed upside down in my lap. WHAT’S SO FUNNY!? I had to change my shorts. Another morning they were to have Arnold muscleman Schwarzenegger on the morning TV program, and I wanted to see that because he’d probably say something about Total Recall, which movie I novelized and is just now in print in hardcover, so a mention might help sales. But I forgot. I never turn on the TV myself, you see; I just don’t tune it in. My wife came down after an hour and turned it on, but wouldn’t you know, they must have run it in the first hour of the show, and we missed it and now will never know. Growr! And the publisher forwarded reviews of Man From Mundania with comments such as “junk-food fantasy” and “loose ends” (by that they mean it’s part of a series) and “another Xanth potboiler.” A literary potboiler is material a writer just grinds out because he needs the money. I never write that way. You don’t see why I’m so touchy? Well, just wait until they review Isle of View and say that Jenny Elf is the stupidest character ever and the Author’s Note is too boring to read. Then let’s see who is touchy! So you see, it’s been exactly the beastly kind of week your mother specializes in.

  Speaking of whom, I got two entire letters from her this week, which I’ll have to answer. Don’t let me forget. So I’ll have to keep this letter reasonably short, so I can get everything done, because there’s also a collaborator to answer, and that fan, and another woman who wants my comment on a chapter of her novel and won’t be pleased when I tell her what’s wrong with it. Sigh.

  Meanwhile I completed the first draft of Tatham Mound and now am adding in ceremonies and legends. This morning I did the one about how tobacco came to be and am part way through the one about how the world was made. Do you want to know about that? The world is a flat island suspended from the sky by four ropes anchored at the four directions—North, East, South and West—and if they ever break, it will sink into the ocean and everyone will drown. Aren’t you glad you found that out in time? Yesterday I did the one about the rolling heads. No, I can’t retell that here; it’s 4000 words long! Let’s just say that in Indian mythology, when someone’s head is cut off, it may roll back and tell off the one who did the foul deed.

  We got an ad for about an 18 volume series of field guides, starting with Peterson’s Field Guide to the Birds. We’re not buying, partly because they are leather-bound and partly because we already have the volumes we want and don’t need to pay $35 for duplicate volumes. My experience with Peterson’s goes way back. When I was in high school I knew how to identify only one bird, the cardinal, because it was red. My roommate, a birdwatcher, taught me the slate colored junco, and I still know that one today. My great aunt gave me the field guide, and the summer after I graduated I used it to identify every bird I saw in the Vermont Green Mountains. It was about fifty birds. Today I know all those fifty, and almost no others. Fortunately some of those are here in Florida too, like the wrens and woodpeckers, though the species differ slightly.

  When I took my shower today I sang “It’s a long time, girl, may never see you, come let me hold your hand.” That song has a long history for me, including serious trouble with a publisher. So if I ever see you, I’ll tell you all about it, and sing it to you, and maybe hold your hand. Don’t wrinkle your nose; how do you know you won’t like it until you hear it? Oh, you mean the hand business? Oh.

  I saw some fashion items on TV. I know I said I don’t turn it on; my wife does. Fashion designers know nothing about decent dressing. These ones all thought that women’s hair should be boyishly short. Yes, I do wonder about the sexual preferences of that ilk. Meanwhile, you can just ignore them and concentrate on growing your hair back long.

  I read an item about the poor way history is taught. Amen! I’m interested in history, but I nearly flunked the high school course in American history. I took the text home for the summer before, read it, and loved it. Then I took the course. It did not address the dynamics of what the white man did to the natives, or the significance of things as I saw them. I still remember the first question on the first test: “Name the man who made the maps that influenced Columbus.” Notice it doesn’t ask about the concept of the round world that motivated Columbus to try to find a shorter passage to India by sailing around the other side of the globe when others thought he would fall off the edge of the world; it wants a name, as if that’s what counts. Names and dates—that’s what they think history is. Gah!

  My wife brought home rental video tapes the past two nights. The first was Rain Man, which is a quality story involving a partially autistic man, well worth seeing. The second was Her Alibi, which is straight entertainment about a writer and a beautiful girl. See it when you can; you’ll love it. But the critics rate it mediocre and call it “witless.” Well, “critic” is a six letter word for a four letter concept. Critics seem to think entertainment is sinful.

  Here’s another magnolia seed or two; I hope they aren’t crushed by the thought of traveling.

  The computer said my letter was 122 lines long, which fits on two pages, then later said 124 lines, which won’t. I deleted my address.

  SapTimber 22, 1989

  Dear Jenny,

  Did I ever tell you how I set up for your letters? I have you on the glossary, so that I just type “jenny” and controlF4 and it puts your address on. Well, I was checking something for my daughter Penny, and it pretended there was no such. So I checked the list of glossary entries, and Penny was there. Don’t tell me these programs can’t get whimsical! Now it agrees that Penny is there, along with Jenny.

  We’ve been getting rain. It’s a tag-end of the outflow from Hurricane Hugo. Let me tell you about hurricanes. Right, here comes one of those patented Anthony explanations; let go of your nose. It’s this way: every hurricane forms in the warm tropical ocean and takes aim at Florida. It’s like a pinball game: there are all these barriers in the way, like Haiti and the Antilles and Cuba, and the trick is to get by them unscathed and into the Gulf of Mexico, then curve back and catch my house. One hundred points if any succeed in blowing off our roof. We are hidden where it’s just about impossible for a storm to find us, but every summer season they just have to try. So here was Hugo, and he set out well, but then drifted off-target and saw he couldn’t make it to the Gulf. Also, he had lost some power. So he said “If I can’t huff and puff and blow Piers' house down, I’ll go for Jenny’s hospital instead.” So he veered north, which had the advantage of restoring some power over the open water, so he got back up to top winds of 135 miles per hour. That’s respectable. But again he misjudged it, and wound up crashing into land halfway between us, at Charlotte, South Carolina. That was a secondary target; I know an editor at TOR BOOKS who lives there, Harriet MacDougal, former senior editor. Her husband is Robert Jordan, author of several Tarzan novels, but don’t judge him by that; he’s about to get into major fantasy, and will be one of the leading figures in the genre. I know. What do you mean, how do I know? Can’t you take it on faith? I read his first huge fantasy epic in manuscript; it hasn’t been published yet. Now shut up and let me continue: she came down to see me here several years ago, and we
discussed my novel Shade of the Tree, and I revised it and TOR published it and has done well enough with it, and your mother will no doubt read it in due course if she hasn’t already. So that’s why Charlotte was on the list. Hugo scored directly on it, and just about leveled it. Poor Harriet! Next hurricane begins with I, and then there will be J. Just wait until next year, or whenever, when Hurricane Jenny comes. I don’t know whether you ever quite understood my pun about Spinning Jenny; it’s an early form of sewing machine. But it may also be that hurricane, when. So remember.

  Yesterday we went to our old house, because storms had brought branches down on the roof and punched a couple of holes. We went up and put big spoonfuls of tar on them—it looked like chocolate pudding—and of course it got on our hands. No we didn’t touch it; it just magically jumps from the can to your skin, and then won’t come off. We used pieces of roofing shingles over the tar, and that should do it; we’ve done it before. Just as well, because we’ve had over an inch of rain today. While we were there, I checked my old study in the pasture, looking for my notes on the sixth martial arts novel, because TOR is interested in republishing the first five if I do one more. No, they aren’t for you to read; it just explains why Hurricane Hugo marked the TOR editor down as a target. I was struck by the way the property was overgrown, and how the little cedar trees we planted by hand are bigger now. There’s just so much nostalgia; after all, about eleven years of our lives are in that property. When you go home—I have it on good authority that eventually that will happen—you’ll probably discover it is smaller than it was when you left it, and some of the cats don’t remember you, and there are rooms it has sprouted since you left, and it will be terribly reassuring and saddening at the same time. That’s just the way it is, Jenny.