by Ray Connolly
‘You mean when you were hooking?’
‘Well, to be truthful, I was just boasting a bit when I told you that. Well, not boasting, you understand, but I never really did do any hooking. Not really.’
‘But you said you were arrested and fined two hundred dollars.’
‘Let me tell you something. There’s two kinds of hookers. Those that will spend an evening sitting on a bar stool talking to some old man who just wants some company while he throws away his money. And nothing else. And those who are really into it body and soul, bouncing beds three, four and five to the hour. A girl can spot which guys she wants. Okay, so technically I was hooking. But no one was making me, ‘ceptin’ maybe a couple of times when either I took a shine to the guy I was with, or when I made a mistake in my choosing and found out he was smarter or younger than I took him for. That security guard just wouldn’t leave me alone. Him with a wife working as a room-maid in the hotel, too.’
‘So—what happened?’
‘Oh, one night I sees this really cute old man. Just looking around for a good time he was. Doing nobody any harm. And, you know, I went over to him. And right away I scored. He was nice. I knew he didn’t want nothin’. Me neither, Just a night out. And maybe, if I was lucky, a little present at the end of the evening. Maybe something like fifty, you know. But they were watching me. And no sooner had I struck up an acquaintance than they were hustling us out and into the police car. I was worried for the old man. He was really upset. You know, those bastards could have given him a heart attack or something. And he was frightened that his old lady would find out.’
‘Did you ever go back?’
‘No. That was it. Somehow word got back to Phil and he filed for divorce, although we hadn’t been together for years and I knew for a fact that he’d been running around a lot. And when it came up the judge said he didn’t think I was a fittin’ person to be a mother. So they took my kids away. And Phil has them. I will say his wife has been a real good mother to them.’
Mary Jane is quiet now and the spools of the tape-recorder are going silently round. Outside the street-lights are shining in the square, while dusk lies in purple across the room, and I wonder how I’m going to get her onto the subject of her book.
‘Would you like to see the Dream Machine working? It’s really great.’ Mary Jane off her waterbed and barefooting over to a huge box in one corner. ‘Now just watch the screen when I put on the record player.’ And there we have it, jumping, leaping colours, building, climbing, melting and climaxing, a vivid and wild kaleidoscope across the screen, driven on by the sound waves of the music.
‘These are the dreams of the everyday housewife
Who gave up the good life
For me.’
‘You like Glen Campbell? I saw him once in Miami.’
‘He’s okay. Tell me, I still don’t know how you came to write your book.’
‘Are you married?’
‘No.’
‘No. I didn’t think so. My second marriage was in Los Angeles. Three years ago. Jim Tinhorn. It was his third. Worked for an airline company, he did. Had a nice apartment with a stereo and colour television and a ’66 Thunderbird. I thought he was a step up. Which I suppose he was. I knew I didn’t love him, but it really didn’t matter. I used to think about how Phil and I were when we were first married, and living in Phoenix. You know, me with a baby on the way. We had some nice times. Being with Jim Tinhorn would be secure, I used to tell myself. The swingers was his idea. He’d been to the parties before with his second wife, and was right in on the action. The first time he took me along I really thought we were going to an ordinary barbecue. He never said a word. Everything seemed pretty straightforward. I remember there was a lot of drink flowing, and we were all pretty tight. And then suddenly I seemed to become aware—you know, the way you suddenly realise that there are an awful lot of things happening that you haven’t been watching—anyway, I suddenly realised that like everybody was getting down on the floor. I was dancing with this guy, and he was sort of taking liberties, well, I thought—so I went off to look for Jim…’
‘… and found him with his pants down.’
‘Did you say something that you thought was funny?’
‘No, really. It… just slipped out.’
‘Let’s have another drink?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘And here’s me thinking I’d found someone who would listen to me. Tell me, did you come here because you thought I’d be some kind of freak or because you wanted to see what a real live swinger looked like, and you thought that if I was that easy you might have the chance of making it with me? Come on, Little Lord Fauntleroy.’
‘You’re bitter. I’m a journalist doing a job. No more. And no less. Your book intrigued me. But you’re much more interesting yourself. I don’t know how much of this I’ll be able to write, but I wish you’d go on. Well, I mean, if you want to. I didn’t mean to be offensive.’
‘All right. Anyway, you were right. I couldn’t find Jim anywhere, and all around couples were just stripping off and getting it on, you know. I found him on the back lawn. With some redhead. There was no sign of his pants----’
Mary Jane laughing: Td like to say I went back and joined in with some guy who was a cross between Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. But I didn’t. I went home. I threatened Tinhorn with divorce and everything the next morning, but he just laughed, and said I was a silly prude from way back of beyond, who would have to grow up if I was going to enjoy life. But, you know, I felt kind of degraded to know that my husband saw Saturday night as his stud night. I used to argue with him, but he always said that if I didn’t want to go to the parties then he’d find a girl who did. So after a time I went to a couple. And joined in … Listen! Do I disgust you?’
‘No. Not at all.’
‘I guess you think I’m some kind of easy lay. Well, I’ll tell you something. I’m not. I haven’t had a man in eighteen months.’
What reaction should I give here? Turning over the cassette. Mary Jane Tinhorn you’re so hopeless. What do you want— sympathy? Affection? I think more likely a spell with a psychoanalyst.
‘I … eh … I thought your book was about your … eh … extra-marital adventures. Well, according to the book, and it can’t be that long since you finished it, you’ve been a pretty busy lady in one way and another.’
‘I don’t blame you for sniggering. I’ll tell you. At the third party I went to I got with this guy Yanov—yeah, the man they call my agent, Felix Yanov the Fourth. Don’t ask me what happened to the second and third. I think they were maybe hustlers, too. So I’m with him, and he’s coming on all hot, and says that we ought to write a book together. He’d done some journalism at college, he said, and we could pool our experiences, he’d do the writing and we’d share the money. I didn’t have any real experiences so he had to provide all of that, but they put my name and picture on the cover because they said it would sell better. Even so, he takes three quarters of the royalties. I get to take the shame and abuse. At first when we were working together he used to demand what he liked to call his pound of flesh, but I guess you could say we weren’t made for each other. With the book doing so well and all he can get himself tons and tons of flesh anywhere he chooses now.’
‘And your husband?’
‘I left him after about eight months. Couldn’t stand it. Him lying in bed there Sunday nights telling me what a great piece of ass he had the night before, and begging and pleading with me to tell him about what I’d done to get him hot. Most times I hadn’t done anything, which got him mad as hell, since it gave him a bad name in the circle. Yanov’s wife was in it up to her neck, so I suppose she should get some share of the money, or something.’
‘Do you want me to write this all down? It’ll—well, I suppose it’ll expose the book as a fraud. Is that what you want? I mean, I don’t know why you told me. Have you ever been interviewed before?’
‘Oh sure, I’ve been inte
rviewed before. When the book was coming out they gave me lessons on what to say and what not to say. Can you believe that? We toured thirty-two cities across the States, me signing copies, and people saying behind my back “that’s her—the tramp” and then paying their five ninety-five to find out what the tramp had to say. We were in St Louis and I phoned Phil and asked if it would be all right if I went over and met the children. You know I had presents for them. And Phil, he didn’t rightly know what to say. I could tell that. And I could hear him asking my boy, and telling him that I’d been a good mother to them both. But the kids didn’t want anything to do with me. Phil just said he was sorry but they were too busy, and it really was nice to hear from me. He meant it, too. I could always tell when he meant what he was saying. He was nice, you know. So I said that seeing as I had some presents for them maybe he and I could have a little drink someplace and that. And he said yes, he’d like that. We arranged to meet in a bar he said he knew, and I went out and bought a new dress and had my hair done, and wrapped the presents up special. I suppose it was silly. I just wanted to explain that it wasn’t me in the book, but Fm sure he must have known, because he knew I never could write him a letter even. And maybe I was hoping that when he saw me looking pretty and everything—well, I don’t know, I suppose I thought he’d maybe want me back or something. Sounds silly. But you get to thinking that way sometimes, and we really were happy when we were in Arizona at first. I went to the bar to meet him, and I was so scared. I knew that he was happily married again. But the contact would have been nice. He could have explained to the children that their mother wasn’t quite what they might think. And I was sitting there with the presents, all wrapped up neat. I hadn’t known what to buy, with it being so long since I’d seen them, and I didn’t know their sizes, so I’d got Little Mary a real nice tennis racket, on account of how she’d always liked to be hitting a ball around the backyard when she was little. And for my boy Phil I had a big Spanish leather belt with a big buckle, you know the kind of thing. And I was sitting there and waiting. And at first I thought he was just late, but I think I knew he’d never come. I waited for an hour and a half in case he’d been held up, but I knew he hadn’t. I know Phil. He meant to come, but probably he’d had second thoughts. He may have been afraid it would be embarrassing. Next day I sent the presents to the children by mail, but I never heard whether they liked them or not.’
Poor Mary Jane. The dream machine is flicking and spitting jets of colour, as the music drones away in the background. And a small red lamp reaches out like a tentacle from a wall over her head. I suppose I should have been congratulating myself on a good interview, and getting out of that door before she asked me not to write any of it, but all I could do was to feel sorry for her.
‘So you want me to write all of this?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know why I told you. Before you came I was just sitting here wondering what on earth I’d let myself in for. I know why Dick let me have this place. He thinks I’m gonna be all right for some fun when he gets back from L.A. on Friday. Maybe he sees me as a freaky instructress, or something. He’ll be sorry when he finds I’ve checked out and gone up the road to the Dorchester. I only accepted this because it seemed like he was pushing it on me and I didn’t want to offend him. I don’t know much about taste, but I think his is vulgar. Except for the waterbed. Did you ever see one of these before? See. Look. Thermostatically heated. Feel. See how squelchy it is. Look, I’ll move over. Isn’t that just great? Don’t you feel like you’re floating, and see when you rock up and down it’s like being on a choppy sea.’
And now here we are, lying side by side, gently bouncing up and down as the waves run the length of the waterbed. Heat reassuring our backs. I suppose it must be plugged in somewhere.
‘If I write about you I think it will hurt the sales of the book, you know.’
‘And honey, will it make me out to be a poor little girl who’s been messed up by the big bad world, and will it make my children love me again, and find me a nice respectable home somewhere?’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘Is that a lot to ask for?’
‘No.’
‘Well, something like that. I’d settle for just a little of any of those things. I’d settle for Phoenix, Arizona, any time.’
‘Have you ever been happy since?’
‘Does it matter to you?’ Mary Jane turning and gazing at me through the dark, her face glowing different shades of pink and blue from the light-show in the corner. ‘You’re a funny one. You and your little tape-recorder. You write what you want to write, I don’t care. I think if s time we turned it off.’ Hand stretching across towards me, and long and painted fingernails feeling around for the control buttons.
‘I’ll do it.’
‘You’re nice to talk to. Do you know that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Do you always listen so well?’
‘If I’m interested.’
‘Oh well, that’s nice. I hope it was intended as a compliment.’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘And what do you think of me now? Come on tell me.’
‘I think you have very long fingernails.’
‘What? Oh yes. A leftover from Tupelo, Mississippi. If you had long fingernails it meant you had a job as a secretary or in an office. A man could learn a lot by holding a girl’s hand in those days. We used to have competitions to see who could grow the longest nails. But come on, you didn’t answer me?’
‘Oh … I think … I think I hope things work out for you … er, the way that you want them to … that you find a nice man, someone … someone who deserves you. And all of that. I mean I think you’ve had an unhappy time, really. Well, I think so…’
‘Go on …’
‘Well, what do you want me to say?’
What can I say, Mary Jane? That all I can feel is compassion? No one likes being felt sorry for. But that’s it. That’s what I’m feeling now. Unless, of course, are you thinking, do I fancy you. You can’t be thinking that, Mary Jane. And yet it’s true. I do. Lying there quietly now. Friendless and hurt when they scorn you. You, whose children rejected you, wondering if you’ll ever go shopping for a family who need you again. Who remembers bobbysox days in Phoenix, Arizona, when you had a baby and a man and a little home. You didn’t ask for much. And now you’re asking if you’re still attractive. You know you’re fading. And the chances are getting fewer. The right chances. But still you’re dreaming the fantasies of being the everyday housewife. Which is what I doubt you can ever be. Tricked into putting your name to a book you despise. An interview I can’t write. Yet how sadly you wait there.
‘And I think you’re very attractive … eh, you know.’
A light smile flickering for a moment: ‘Thank you.’ I can see you don’t believe me. Yet it’s the truth. Who destroyed your confidence, Mary Jane? It wasn’t me. Blame rampant male chauvinism if you like, but don’t blame me. Now reaching down, taking a hand and tracing the lines of those fingernails. And she not protesting, but lying quite still. And watching. What was it they used to say in Tupelo?
There’s no colour or music left in the machine. Calm and quiet, as I lean across and kiss her lips. Thicker and rougher than I’d noticed.
And then slowly I watched while she untied the strings to her gown, and pulled it open for me. And in the reflection of the street lamps I gazed at her body, and inwardly smiled at the Stars and Stripes of her bra and pants, and, remembering Abbie Hoffman’s shirt, considered the penalties for interfering with them. And would it, I thought, be considered defacing the flag of the United States were I to lower them for purposes other than in the national interest. And then I thought about Raquel Welch and her Stars-and-Striped bikini, and in the dark I wondered to myself whether Mary Jane had in her terrible innocence thought that the same effect might be achieved were she to wear such an outfit. And I felt a great tenderness towards her. And her naïveté. Little Miss
America, covering her odds and end in Old Glory. Two tatters of white stars on blue harnessed under her breasts, and pushing them out like acorns. Two little mountains, I think. American mountains. The Rockies and the Appalachians. That’s it, and there’s Pike’s Peak hiding under that right hand cup. Once worked on a ranch there, I did, and spent an unhappy and smelly day pumping a cesspit into a honey wagon. Why d’you do it, I asked the tanker driver, the pair of us covered in shit and slime. The money’s great. That’s the only reason. My old lady made me have an outdoor bathroom built on just for me. She says you ain’t bringing none of your work home with you, boy.’ And here I am again—Pike’s Peak—aproned with the flag. Now I’m exploring under the flag, which isn’t difficult, Mary Jane is quite still, and Fm gentle, and a gentleman, that for once she might feel, and be felt, like a lady.
And now a voyage east to rediscover the bears on the Blue Ridge Highway of West Virginia, a national preserve still, I see, and lying across my contour map I can tickle under her armpit a humid New York. Now lowering the flags, and running a hand down to Lebanon, Kansas, middle town of continental United States, though no naval base, I fear. Mary Jane’s hands around my neck pulling me close, while down among the stripes I wander, and under, and down in the bayou I journey intrepidly in Delta country. ‘Now’, whispers my friend, and helps me while I push up into the heart of America, deep along the Mississippi, which, Mary Jane, is where you started out. A riverboat shuffle, while my hands clasp tight the Texas Panhandle and the Georgia maize fields. Mary Jane, my green pastures of plenty and the best geography lesson a man ever had, bouncing with such enthusiasm on this bed of water. And now deep in the Gulf I feel a cyclone brewing and beginning to move upwards into the Southern states, while my companion clings tight in the whirlwind, always smiling. And now it’s up past Tupelo and our dinghy is caught in the storm, while underneath the water gurgles, and waves toss us together, and Mary Jane with arms outstretched grips into our little craft, fingers tight, nails slitting deep into the rubber, until the storm breaks over us, and my head is lost in her hair, and down around our waists I feel fountains playing upon us, warm water spraying up out of our bed while we sink into the punctured mattress. Mary Jane roaring with excitement as we sink lower and lower, soaked to the skin and scratching my neck with those lethal fingernails, as warm water runs in rivers across Dick’s blocked floors, encircling his tiger skin and island cushions. And thank you, thank you, she said over and over again, then watched, in hysterics as, with a flash and a bang, the thermostatically-controlled waterbed tried to kill us both, snaking an electric flame across the river on the floor and into the plug by the dream machine. Thank you, honey.’