Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man

by Lawrence Block

  All she wants in the whole world is for me to fuck her. In the mouth, between the tits, in the twat, under the arm, between the toes, anywhere, anytime, anyhow. And up the old wazoo. Especially that last. Loves to take it there. It still hurts. Not as much as the first time, but it still hurts.

  I don’t know what we’ll do if it ever stops hurting. I suppose we’ll think of something.

  Well, I talked it all over with Rozanne, and she agreed that I had to share this discovery with you. It’s not enough to love a woman, to cherish her, to adore her. It’s just simply not enough.

  What you’ve got to do, Steve, is haul off and fuck Fran in the ass.

  Really sock it to her.

  But for God’s sake, don’t let her know about it in advance. In fact, be damned careful she doesn’t get hold of this letter.

  Because if you tell her what you want to do, or if you try to build up to it gradually, it just ain’t gonna come off properly. No way, baby. Because the world is full of women who are totally stone-certain that the one thing they don’t want is to be buggered. Even the experimentally inclined ones tend to change their mind after it’s in an inch or so. Because it hurts.

  Which, of course, is the whole point. First you burn their guts out, and then, just when they’re sure they can’t take any more of the pain, you surprise them with a wave of pleasure that really knocks them out because they weren’t expecting it. And once you’ve done that, you own them.

  I’ve been trying to imagine what my life might have been like if someone had whispered this secret to me in my formative years. (Come to think of it, Norman Mailer more or less spelled out this idea in a couple of things. Maybe the trouble is that the important lessons of life are the ones we have to learn on our own.)

  But if I had known then what I know now, Lisa would never have wanted to part company. She would have been transformed from an aggressive, castrating ball-breaker into a thing of beauty and a joy forever. And Fran, if truly buggered (we did it once, and she didn’t like it, so I hurried up and came quick and agreed never to try it again), would not be in Cuernavaca at this very moment.

  Well, have the sense to learn from my experience. Wait for a night when you’re sure you won’t come prematurely. Warm her up plenty, get her in the mood. Tell her you want to try it doggie style.

  And then, when she’s waiting with open box, give her the surprise of her life.

  Pow!

  Wham!!

  Bang!!!

  She’ll love you forever, old pal.

  With the utmost sincerity,

  Your Friend, Larry

  cc: Nancy Hall

  20

  c/o Gumbino

  311½ West 20th St.

  New York 10011

  July 9

  Miss Nancy Hall

  Camp Arondequois R.D. #2

  Seaford, Vt.

  Dear Nancy:

  By now I trust you and Dawn are settled in and adjusted to your role as junior counselors. If you haven’t formed any alliances yet with the boy counselors, let me give you both a word of advice. Watch out for the dynamite studs—i.e., the swimming counselor, the athletic director, and all the standard Greek-god types. They may look great, but they won’t fuck well. It comes too easy to them and all they want to do is get in and come in a hurry and cut another notch on their cock and find some other girls. As they get older they may have possibilities, but not now.

  Instead, pick out some agreeable freak and pitch him right over the center of the plate. The kind of guy you like immediately as a person but don’t even think of in sexual terms. Because, unless you misplace your intuition and pick a stone-faggot, he’ll be thinking of you in sexual terms, and that’s what it’s all about. Pick the kid running the nature hut, or the one who teaches arts and crafts. If he turns out to be a virgin, so much the better. He’ll never forget you, and you’ll be into a whole new scene.

  End of lecture.

  I’m enclosing a copy of a letter to Steve. You know about Steve. I think you’ll get a kick out of this one. So will Dawn, but you especially, Nancy.

  Have a good summer, kids. I envy you all that fresh air and sunshine. But New York does have its compensations, as you’ll read.

  Do you get days off there? If you can ever make it to New York, please do. You can always stay overnight at our place. Rozanne is anxious to meet you.

  Madly and poetically,

  Larry

  21

  c/o Gumbino

  311½ West 20th St.

  New York 10011

  July 11

  Miss Ellen Jamison

  c/o General Delivery

  Bryn Mawr, Pa.

  Dear Ellen:

  By now I trust you’re settled in with your mother and her new husband. I also trust you remember I said I would write you c/o General Delivery. I’m also marking the envelope “Hold for Pickup” to prevent some over-zealous postmaster from taking matters into his own hands. I know you’re positive your mother wouldn’t open your mail. But why tempt fate? At the least, you would have to invent something when she asked you who the letter was from. I’ve always found that it pays to tell the truth whenever possible. Since it’s rarely possible, the idea is to minimize situations in which lying becomes necessary.

  How are you getting along with your mother and her new husband? (I hate to keep calling him that, it’s so damned depersonalizing, but although you must have told me his name several times, I can’t remember it. I keep thinking Ralph, but that can’t be right, can it? I’ll call him Ralph in this letter just to save time.)

  There is one problem you are going to have to face, one question you are going to have to answer. It is simply this—whether or not to fuck Ralph.

  No point pretending the question won’t come up. You’re both sexual and desirable, honey, and you’ve got enough of a mother hangup so that you can’t help being attracted to her men for purely competitive reasons. (I seem to recall discussing this with you.) So you are going to want to fuck Ralph and Ralph is going to want to fuck you. You will both also want not to fuck each other. That’s where the conflict is.

  Be grateful you’re not a virgin anymore. That would just make things more complicated.

  I can’t tell you how to answer the question. What I can tell you is this: If you decide to fuck him, you’ve got to do it in a messless fashion.

  (1) Your mother must not find out. This means that you must avoid discovery. It also means that you must be sure Ralph will not, through some misguided impulse, tell her himself. He could do this out of guilt, or he could throw it in her face out of sheer shitfulness. If there’s the slightest chance he might do this, stay the hell away from him.

  (2) Neither of you can fall in love with the other. I think you’re sharp enough not to fall in love with Ralph. It would be a natural mistake for you to make, but fortunately you’re sufficiently self-analytical enough to be forewarned. And if you make it sufficiently obvious that the whole thing is inconsequential to you, male pride should keep Ralph from falling in love with you. Unless he’s a hopeless loser, in which case you ought to stay away from him in the first place.

  End of lecture.

  Things have been generally good for me lately. As you can see from the return address, I’ve moved slightly uptown and am living with Rozanne Gumbino. I think you read some of my letters about her during your defloration. Well, not during. Before or after.

  Have a good summer, kid. I envy you all that fresh air and sunshine. But New York does have its compensations, as you know.

  Do you ever get a chance to get away? If you can ever make it to New York, please do. You can always stay overnight at our place. Rozanne is anxious to meet you.

  Madly and poetically,

  Larry

  22

  c/o Gumbino

  311½ West 20th St.

  New York 10011

  July 12

  Miss Mary Katherine O’Shea

  and Miss Barbara Judith Castle

  Ba
r-Bison Dude Ranch

  Altamont, New Mexico

  Dear Merry Cat and B.J.:

  By now I trust you are both settled in for the summer, riding spirited bays and roans and mucking out the stables. When I think of you on the horses, I wish I were your saddles. When I think of the stables, I am reminded of that furnished room in Darien.

  May I offer some unsolicited advice? It is, after all, one of the prerogatives of old age. If you’re not in the mood, just skip the following paragraph.

  Here goes. The thing is, the two of you are very much involved with one another. As I’m sure you have already come to realize. This never constituted any enormous hangup while you were at school, because the other four daughters of Lancaster were around, and there were various males, myself not (I fondly hope) the least among them.

  Now you’re out in God’s country with nothing much around but squares on vacation and cowboys on horseback. You may dig some of the cowboys—anything’s possible—in which case there’s no problem. You may even dig some of the squares, as far as that goes, in which case again there’s no problem.

  But it’s also possible that you won’t, and that there won’t be any other interesting females around either, and that you’ll have only each other.

  If so, there’s nothing to worry about. That’s the whole point, there’s nothing to worry about. The only worry is worry, to paraphrase FDR. Because you might start brooding that you’re lesbians and that that’s bad and all the rest of it. If you wind up spending the entire summer just balling each other, that’s perfectly fine. It’s much better than balling someone else whom you don’t like, just to convince yourself you’re straight. End of lecture.

  Things have been generally good for me lately. As you can see from the return address, I’ve moved slightly uptown and am living with Rozanne Gumbino. I think you read some of my letters about her.

  Have a good summer, kids. I envy you all that fresh air and sunshine. But New York does have its compensations, as you know.

  I don’t suppose you’ll ever get a chance to get away? But if the summer is a bummer and you quit early, please make it to New York if possible. You can always stay overnight at our place. Rozanne is anxious to meet you.

  Madly and poetically,

  Larry

  23

  c/o Gumbino

  311½ West 20th St.

  New York 10011

  July 13

  Miss Alison Keller

  c/o General Delivery

  Hicksville, Long Island, N.Y.

  Dear Alison:

  By now I trust you are settled in for the summer with your folks. I hope the painting is going well, and that the rest of the situation is not as bad as you thought it might be.

  I also trust you remember I said I would write you c/o General Delivery. I’m also marking the envelope “Hold for Pickup” to prevent some over-zealous postmaster from taking matters into his own hands. I know you’re positive your parents wouldn’t open your mail. But why tempt fate? At the least, you would have to invent something when they asked you who the letter was from. I’ve always found that it pays to tell the truth whenever possible. Since it’s rarely possible, the idea is to minimize situations in which lying becomes necessary.

  May I offer some unsolicited advice? It is, after all, one of the prerogatives of old age. If you’re not in the mood, just skip the following paragraph.

  Here goes. The thing is, it looks as though you’re pretty sure to have a shitty summer. I wish you just the opposite, but in view of your intrafamily conflicts and your particular social role in Hicksville (and in view of Hicksville itself, which certainly must live up to its name) you and I both know that an idyllic summer is less than likely.

  You may be tempted to try to work out some of these conflicts, to try to open things up and assert yourself a little. This sounds like an invitation to cop out, but I think you should, well, cop out. There’s no way you can really resolve anything, and if you try you’ll just make yourself (and everybody else) still more miserable. A vital part of the whole maturation process is learning when to cop out, and this is one of those times.

  Take the frustration and put it into your painting. It’s very important to develop a creative means of getting accumulations of garbage out of your head. I do it with a typewriter. You learned a long time ago to do it in paint, and you have the advantage of producing something beautiful, while all I do is write silly letters. Stay with it, Alison. Paint like a madwoman. I think you’re phenomenally talented, for whatever it’s worth.

  Things have been generally good for me lately. As you can see from the return address, I’m still living with Rozanne. She knows you were here that day, by the way, and is perfectly agreeable about that sort of thing.

  Have a good summer, kid. I envy you all that fresh air and sunshine. But New York does have its compensations, as you well know.

  At least you’ll be able to get away from time to time. Whenever you get a chance to come into the city, please do. You can always stay overnight at our place. Rozanne is anxious to meet you.

  Madly and poetically,

  Larry

  24

  WHITESTONE PUBLICATIONS, INC.

  67 West 44th Street

  New York 10036

  From the desk of Clayton Finch, President

  July 15

  Mr. George Ribbentraub

  Ribbentraub Realty Corp.

  414 East 14th Street

  New York 10003

  Dear Mr. Ribbentraub:

  Mr. Hector Carbo has given your name as a reference, and I would greatly appreciate your giving me any pertinent information on the man’s employment record with you, plus any general remarks you might care to offer concerning his character and personal habits.

  The post for which Mr. Carbo is under consideration carries a considerable load of executive responsibility and calls for keen all-around judgment and accomplished editorial skills. Should we decide to employ Mr. Carbo, he will take the helm of Rachel Rabbit’s Magazine for Girls and Boys. This publication, while essentially a revamped version of a proven success, is in other respects a new venture entirely, oriented as it is towards Women’s Liberation for the junior set. We feel very strongly about its potential, not only as a highly marketable item but as one which may beneficially influence contemporary American culture.

  In this light, I would appreciate any information which may reflect on Mr. Carbo’s suitability or lack thereof.

  Warmest regards,

  Clayton Finch

  CF/rg

  25

  WHITESTONE PUBLICATIONS, INC.

  67 West 44th Street

  New York 10036

  From the desk of Clayton Finch, President

  July 19

  Mr. Laurence Clarke

  74 Bleecker Street

  New York 10012

  Dear Mr. Clarke:

  You go too far, Mr. Clarke.

  I had begun to think that this unilateral war directed against me was over. It seems you are determined to persist in it. As the result of your latest folly, I found myself entangled in a completely hysterical conversation with a person named Ribbentraub, who wanted to know why I wanted to hire some Puerto Rican janitor as a magazine editor. I had a great deal of trouble disengaging myself from this lunatic but ultimately managed to convince him of what I suspected myself, that the whole affair was the result of an innocent misunderstanding.

  Innocent!

  Mr. Ribbentraub, however, was not so easily put off. He promptly mailed me a letter which he had received, typed on my own letterhead with my own signature rather inexpertly forged on the bottom of it. I might still have been in the dark but for your use of the Rachel Rabbit’s nonsense, which instantly identified the perpetrator of the deed as yourself.

  I could even forgive this last, Clarke, but for an even more grievous effort on your part, which I uncovered only through further communication with poor Ribbentraub. I called him to attribute this madness to you,
and to persuade him to give me your forwarding address. This he did, and I thus discovered that you had the temerity to supply him with the address of my secretary, Miss Gumbino.

  For heaven’s sake, Clarke, what’s the point of this sort of nonsense? Why besmirch the name of an innocent girl simply to gratify your sense of the ridiculous? It accomplishes absolutely nothing. No one is fooled by your little performances, no one at all. I’m happy to report that I passed this information on to Miss Gumbino, who as you may well imagine was roundly shocked by what you attempted to imply. Fortunately, however, she was able to tell me that there have been no repercussions from your little prank, and that you have ceased to press your unwelcome attentions upon her. Perhaps you do have some element of decency in you. Hardly an abundance thereof, but some.

  Nevertheless, you have gone too far, as I said above. I am thus obliged to tell you that, in the seemingly unlikely event that you eventually bestir yourself to seek gainful employment, it will no longer be possible for this office to provide you with a favorable reference.