My Father, the Pornographer : A Memoir (9781501112485)

by Offutt, Chris

  Ten months later, photographed at their next SF convention in 1970, my parents have undergone a drastic change. Around their necks are silk kerchiefs loosely held by metal clasps. Both wear rock-star sunglasses. Dad has a full beard and long hair. He’s dressed in blue jeans, a thick leather belt, and a loose shirt with epaulets and flap pockets. Mom’s hair is cropped into a pixie cut. She wears a blouse, jeans, and sandals. Each has a broad smile, their bodies in open, relaxed postures. Starved for a sense of social belonging, my parents had found a community that embraced them—science fiction fandom.

  Local people occasionally commented that Dad was turning into a hippie, eliciting one of his many pre-thought responses: “Hippies don’t shave. I’m raising a beard.” Mom’s new haircut alarmed me. In the Bible Belt of eastern Kentucky, I was taught at school that a woman’s hair was her glory and she should never cut it off. No other woman in Haldeman wore her hair short.

  The Bible vanished from the dining room, replaced by an equally large copy of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. Dad gave our property the official address of The Funny Farm, putting it on legal documents, stationery, and bank checks. Entering the public world of science fiction fandom offered Dad a chance to leave identity behind—as a businessman, family man, and dutiful citizen.

  For decades American literary circles ignored science fiction, placing it at the very bottom of the popular genres. This gave the writers a great deal of freedom, which they used to explore sexual themes in a more overt fashion than other books could. The science fiction market had dried up as pornography ignited, and many writers moved to porn. Among science fiction fans, there was no stigma attached to writing porn. As a result, Dad’s pornography was accepted, and John Cleve transformed to a fully formed role he could embody.

  From his papers I learned that Dad’s experiments with a literary mask had begun at age fourteen, when he baled hay for fifty cents an hour and bought a pulp magazine featuring Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. He wrote two Sheena stories and submitted them without success under the name Anson J. O’Rourke, utilizing his initials. In childhood he was known as Jay, Little Andy, and A.J., which instilled in him the malleability of identity.

  During college he wrote stories as Morris Kenniston, later choosing the name for the protagonist of his novel The Messenger of Zhuvastou. He used fiction to shape identity through the invention of characters, then applied the habit to his own life. Pen names provided partitions to various rooms in the mansion of his mind. Due to his habit of playacting as a child, his father called him “Lord Barrymore,” after the actor. Dad’s sister told me he occupied so many roles with such fervor that his true self gradually disappeared, and in later years she didn’t know him anymore. He became whoever and whatever he believed himself to be at the moment—father, husband, salesman, neighbor, or John Cleve.

  As Dad told me, he preferred being a big fish in a small pond: the president of his college fraternity, the only educated man in Haldeman, the top salesman in eastern Kentucky. The professional world of science fiction offered a similar limitation of scope. In 1970 and 1972, Dad published two science fiction novels, both serious examinations of near-future America. His stated goals were simple—he wanted to change the world by warning citizens of a violent and corrupt future. Evil Is Live Spelled Backwards is set in America under a Christian-based government with a heavily armed police force. Law enforcement seeks couples in the act of illegal sexual congress. If caught, the man is summarily executed. After sterilization, the woman becomes a prostitute for corrupt government officials. A reluctant member of the Federal Obscenity Police leads a revolution.

  The protagonist of The Castle Keeps is a writer named Jeff Andrews who lives with his family in the house in which I grew up, on the same hill and dirt road. The interpersonal family dynamic was equally familiar—an autocratic man who demanded obedience and swift apology from his wife and kids. Here the similarities ended, and my father imagined our country’s bleak future—unsanitary water and crops poisoned by pesticides. Police officers wear body armor and carry heavy arms with which they attack citizens. The world is running out of resources, particularly oil. Jeff Andrews grows a garden, stockpiles arms and food, and homeschools his children.

  I read The Castle Keeps at age fourteen. My father asked if I’d noticed the first and last words of the book, “Dad” and “home.” He told me he’d written them on purpose—for me. The protagonist’s son leaves rural Kentucky for the big city, where he works as a truck driver and begins to write fiction. I never planned to follow in my father’s footsteps, nor did I seek to fulfill the prophecy of his novel’s characters. Nevertheless, at age nineteen, I left Kentucky for New York City, where I got a job as a truck driver. I wanted to be an actor but instead began writing fiction seriously.

  Both of these early novels garnered fleeting attention and quickly went out of print. Dad was extremely disappointed with the reception, blaming the cover art and inadequate promotion. He expressed a bitter belief that years of research and revision had failed to provide a strong reward, financial or critical. Though Dad believed his social commentary had come to nothing, The Castle Keeps and Evil Is Live Spelled Backwards are his best-written books. Together they anticipated the post-9/11 militarization of local police, the rise of anti-government militias in rural areas, corporate influence on federal policy, the creation of the Tea Party, and the rightward shift of the Supreme Court.

  These books, along with a handful of short stories, established my father’s credentials and earned him entry to the Science Fiction Writers of America. The SFWA was a nearly ungovernable organization of misfits, rebels, and contrarians known for petty grievances and brutally absurd political maneuvering. Dad served as treasurer, then became president for two years. Lumped in with science fiction was the genre of fantasy, typified by wizards, swordplay, and gods who walked the earth. Dad moved swiftly into that field, eventually publishing twenty-four novels and editing five anthologies.

  My father’s parallel careers in fantasy, science fiction, and porn occurred during the same years my parents attended SF conventions—or cons—as many as nine per year, where they developed deep relationships with people they rarely saw. To the accepting world of fandom, Dad revealed his secret identity. SF fans enjoyed his porn, or at least knowing about it, and Dad savored the attention. It gave him extra cachet, a touch of glamour in the world of spacecraft and hard SF. There was a precedent of crossover between writers of porn and science fiction, but Dad was the first to forge dual careers. The con committee invited Andrew J. Offutt and got John Cleve in the bargain. He enjoyed playing both roles. At cons he’d wear one set of clothes for a science fiction panel, then change into John Cleve attire for parties. He switched name tags so often that a fan presented him with a large handmade tag of bright fabric. Stitched on one side was OFFUTT. The reverse said CLEVE.

  To save money, my parents ceased hiring people to stay with us. At age twelve, I was placed in charge when they went to cons. My brother was nine, and my sisters were eight and seven. My instructions were simple: feed my siblings, feed the dogs, don’t run in the house, and above all, don’t tell anyone that Mom and Dad are gone. At night, I fixed supper and put my siblings to bed, reassuring them that everything was fine. After they were asleep, I sat alone in the house and fretted. I was afraid my parents would never return. I worried how we’d get food and what would happen if the electricity went out during a storm. I feared I’d lose my siblings, that I would fail at taking care of them.

  Occasionally my parents were late returning on Sunday afternoon, and I called the state police to ask if there had been any fatal accidents on the interstate. Fortunately, our parents always came home. My relief was mixed with trepidation: They were exhausted, and Dad might fly off the handle at any moment. Mom slipped silently about the house, as fearful of his potential rage as we were. Many years later I understood the dire position she was in, caught between two opposing forces. Any display of loyalty to her children risked Da
d’s perception that she was disloyal to him, the worst act of treachery. She strode a rigid and terrible middle ground but invariably chose Dad. It was the wiser decision. His anger at her would quickly extend to all of us and last longer.

  In 1971 Dad was invited to be guest of honor at a convention in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, over Thanksgiving weekend. To offset missing the holiday, the chairman offered a free room for the Offutt kids. I had just turned thirteen. It was my first con, representing entrance to the secret world my parents inhabited. After a seven-hour drive, we arrived at dusk, underdressed for the harsh November wind cutting across the plains. Meals hadn’t been part of Dad’s negotiations. While everyone ate turkey at the banquet, my siblings and I shared Kraft cheese sandwiches in our room. The con had severe fiscal problems, prompting my father to forgo the final payment of his fee, which led to his being guest of honor for the next thirty years. As a result of his generosity to strangers, we never had another family Thanksgiving.

  For a few years my siblings and I attended nearby cons with our parents, the only form of family vacation we ever had. Cons exposed me to an exotic world beyond the hills. Men in Haldeman carried pistols. At cons, adults wore wizard robes, swords, and space guns. I once witnessed a fatigued con chairman trying to explain to the hotel manager why a man in a Star Trek outfit was sitting in the kiddie pool with a woman wearing a diaphanous gown and holding a snake. Attendees tended to interact with a defensiveness born of insecurity, often dueling via their knowledge of science fiction. Some devoted their time to playing poker, bridge, and hearts. I spent an hour watching two obese fans reading side by side in the hotel lobby. Each time they turned a page, they simultaneously dipped a hand into a bag of potato chips, as if the two actions were synchronized. I understood that this was how they behaved at home, and that cons offered an opportunity to safely display their private quirks. My parents’ devotion to this world confused me. I regarded fans as strange, sad, and extremely obnoxious. The violent world of Haldeman was more secure.

  At cons, my siblings and I shared a hotel room with two coolers of food. We were each given a room key, cautioned against embarrassing our parents, and turned loose. They didn’t tell us their room number. If we needed them for a serious reason, we were instructed to go to the main con suite and tell someone. Kids were rare at cons and there was no formal child care. My brother believed that people felt sorry for us, and my sisters retained few memories beyond a general boredom. For me, cons were an opportunity to utterly abdicate my big-brother role. Immediately upon arriving, I’d explore the hotel and memorize its layout in order to elude authority and siblings.

  Aside from big-city art theaters, the only way to see vintage SF movies was at a con, an experience I couldn’t bear. Fans had watched the movies so often that they competed by making loud comments intended as humorous, thereby ruining the films for anyone else. I preferred an area called the Huckster Room, set aside for dealers in books, magazines, comic books, original art, and posters. Already an avid comic collector, I saw cons as a way to improve my holdings. My brother and I shared an old leather suitcase with a hinged flap that separated the two sides. He filled his half with clothes and extra underwear. I stocked my section with comics to swap, and wore the same outfit the entire time. Now and then I caught an untoward glimpse of the politics of fandom—hucksters who didn’t like my father drove me off with rude comments.

  At the time I didn’t know I was at the forefront of what would become a massively popular “geek culture” as cons splintered into subgroups, evolving to widespread acceptance. Comic Con currently draws over 150,000 attendees. The Society for Creative Anachronism has its own formal gatherings, as do Star Trek, anime, pulps, fantasy, cyberpunk, steam punk, alternate history, and gaming. In the early 1970s, they were all huddled beneath the ragged tent of SF cons, which doubled as sexual free-for-alls. Mom and Dad lodged themselves on a separate floor from us. They shared two rooms with a linking door. Years later my father told me it was a means to accommodate private liaisons on both their parts.

  My mother’s seamless veneer of politesse was unusual among fans, whose interpersonal skills were on a par with those of chess players and degenerate gamblers. Fans revered my father as royalty, granting him constant attention. They gave him swords and daggers, homemade chain mail, whips and leather cuffs, bottle after bottle of bourbon, plaques, statues, and original art. Dad was charismatic and funny until someone failed to grant the proper respect, usually by having the audacity to speak. Dad then subjected that person to a public humiliation that made others uncomfortable, an interaction that enhanced my father’s notoriety. I learned to avoid Dad, who gave me dirty looks and deliberately turned his back if I didn’t vacate the area quickly. It was similar to our home life, except the hotel offered an alternative to the woods as refuge.

  My parents cultivated a special con wardrobe. Dad dressed in dashikis or open-necked shirts with giant collars, zipper boots, wide leather belts, and flared pants. Mom wore short skirts and low-cut blouses that zipped up the front with no bra, high boots, and tight belts. John Cleve wore a long djellaba with nothing underneath, while Mom wore a floor-length polyester gown. To complement Dad’s leather-and-denim leisure suit, Mom had a leather miniskirt. My parents were a compelling pair, and I was awestruck by the figures they cut. Though they ignored me at cons, I never loved them more, drawn to the personas they’d crafted for public consumption.

  As with any subculture, a particular argot developed, insider talk that marked familiarity and experience on the part of the speakers. The vocabulary served a purpose similar to Cockney rhyming slang and the Irish travelers’ shelta, cryptolects that excluded strangers. The lingo of fandom enjoyed puns, acronyms, deep insider jokes, and the unusual habit of adding the letter “h” to words in order to make them more “fhannish.” Fan slang was molten, shifting from verb to noun to modifier at will, used orally and in print.

  In the cleverly agile minds of SF fans, the word “fan” underwent many permutations, including pluralizing it to “fen.” Newcomers were “neo-fen.” The word “fannish” was used as a compliment, “unfannish” as a pejorative. The language itself was called “fanspeak,” and included “corflu,” an abbreviation for the correction fluid used when typing fanzines; “filking,” which referred to the playing and singing of songs; and “LoC,” which meant “letter of comment” to a fanzine and begat “locced” and “loccer.”

  Eager to fit in, I learned fanspeak rapidly, becoming well versed in this clandestine coded language, unknown in the hills. Like my parents, I had no one with whom to share it. Unlike them, I didn’t crave further contact with speakers of the cant.

  In late June 1972, my family undertook a two-week trip that encompassed three cons. We loaded the Mercedes on a Friday. Mom and Dad shared the driving while the four of us kids sprawled in the backseat, feet propped on coolers, our luggage in the trunk. We drove to Cincinnati for MidwestCon, a boring event due to its deliberate lack of programming. After three days, we embarked on the second leg. Somewhere in rural Indiana, the Mercedes began emitting a loud and steady sound of rasping metal, and we heard an explosion from under the hood. The engine immediately stalled. Dad steered to the shoulder. Frustrated and furious, he put me to work gathering pieces of the engine scattered along the road behind us. I pulled my T-shirt away from my body to form a basket for the chunks of metal, which burned my fingers. A state trooper arranged for a tow to a garage, where we remained for several hours.

  According to the mechanic, a red oil light on the dashboard indicated that the car had run completely out of oil. The Mercedes had thrown a rod, meaning a piston had broken free of the crankshaft and exploded through the bottom of the engine block. Obtaining the necessary replacement parts would be delayed due to the Fourth of July weekend. Many phone calls later, fans going to the same con stopped and gave us rides, splitting up the family. My brother and I joined a strange pair of men, unkempt and smelly, who argued nonstop about Silent Running. We a
rrived in Wilmot, Wisconsin, tired, hungry, and forlorn. Dad was angry at Mom for not noticing the oil light. My brother and I were scared from the erratic driving of the Silent Running freaks. My sisters were withdrawn and silent.

  WilCon was an invitation-only affair held at a family-owned ski resort with a fake mountain. The lodge was closed in summer, and people slept on cots, furniture, the floor, the porch, and in dozens of tents. Mom and Dad shared the bedroom of the hosts. My siblings and I joined two other kids in the basement, lined up in sleeping bags. WilCon was not really a con at all but a constant party that had evolved from a one-day picnic to a four-day gathering of fans and hippies. In fannish circles, it was well known for its exclusivity. Various legends had accrued: A Star Trek actor buried treasure on the property; an adored fan dropped dead one year; another fan repeatedly ran into trees while chasing a Frisbee under the influence of hallucinogenics. Couples swapped mates, swapped again, and kept swapping.

  Loud rock music began playing early in the morning and continued late into the night. Meals were less than savory, prepared by a rotating crew of forced volunteers. All day long, people played cards, washed dishes, and debated the influence of E. E. “Doc” Smith on the novels of Robert Heinlein. They also consumed enormous quantities of alcohol. The scent of marijuana wafted from the only closed door in the house. I didn’t like the taste of alcohol, but the smell of pot enticed me to the dope room, where I stood outside the door taking great inhalations and wondering if I was high enough to run into a tree.

  Ever observant and in constant motion, I drifted the grounds like a coyote, circling the periphery, then moving in for a closer look. Nude people flashed skin through open tent flaps or skinny-dipped in the nearby pond. My mother checked on my siblings and me a few times a day, mainly at meals and in the late evening. I never interacted with my father, who pointedly ignored me, perpetually surrounded by sycophants.