Big Sex Little Death: A Memoir

by Susie Bright

  But the real reason I couldn’t imagine having a baby was that I was afraid of my temper, afraid of doing those things for which you can’t ever fully apologize. I knew that my mom had been “sorry” that she had hit me (after all, it wasn’t as bad as she’d been hit). She didn’t remember threatening me (after all, we did survive). Maybe it was my fault sometimes; isn’t that what kids think? Mommy, I'm sorry, I’m so sorry. It changed nothing for her. But then, her actions had very little to do with me.

  If I stayed pregnant, if I had the baby, I had to take a vow. But a real vow entails keeping your promise … could I keep a pact that had been broken to me, however much in sorrow? Could I say to my daughter, “I will never hit you, I will never lose you. I will never hide the truth from you, I will never try to extinguish you?”

  It’s not like anyone “planned” to do differently with me.

  My conception appeared madcap to many of my friends. Yet I think I had a lot better idea of what I was getting into than my mom did when she was thirty-two.

  I had a soft spot for the man I conceived with, but we knew we weren’t destined for longevity, nor he for any kind of parenting. We talked about it frankly. I told him, “I’ll never ask you for anything, but I know, wherever you are, you’ll be proud of her.” He asked me to take care of his family belongings before he went on the road again — I knew he trusted me. He was the High Plains Drifter, shimmering into disappearance in the heat.

  Rotation

  I met Jon shortly before I got pregnant; we became lovers and friends and stayed that way for the next twenty-some years.

  I met him because my tires needed to be balanced. He will tell you that I arrived at the mechanic’s garage in a black catsuit, like Emma Peel, and that I tried to lure him away to a beach down the coast where everyone strips off their clothes and huddles, making love in driftwood caves that other nudists erected to protect themselves from the wind.

  It’s true, I flirted with him; but it was because he was a really good talker, handsome, and completely alone in a run-down tire shop in the Outer Sunset. It was such a sweet escape to have a moment of screwball comedy in the Ocean Beach fog.

  He didn’t come away with me the first time. The only remembrance from the tire shop is that we kissed goodbye, my low-profile tires beckoning. I don’t think I’d ever kissed my mechanic before.

  He kept my number, which I’d scrawled down on the credit card receipt, and six months after our meeting, he left a message at my office: “Do your tires need rotating?”

  My whole life needed rotating.

  We both had other lovers, we both had messy breakups, we both had recently ended relationships with “older women” whom we cared for dearly. We also had a talent for putting ourselves in peril by climbing into bed with some scary characters. I remember once when my current shady character and his scary girl sought each other out and took each other to bed. It was two con artists sizing each other up. They wanted to see what the other one was capable of. Maybe they wanted to compare notes on the thrills of fucking Raggedy Ann and Andy. The bandits competed to see who was the most deadly. It was a draw.

  During my thirtieth year I had started seeing a therapist, and even though she barely said a word, there is something about sitting in a room talking to yourself, a kind face across from you nodding at your every word, that is bound to reveal a few things.

  I made a joke to her one day, “Well, I have to say, at least my new friend Jon isn’t trying to kill me or himself or anybody else.” He took great care. Everyone enjoys those qualities in a lover. But at my low ebb, distressed at breaking up with Honey Lee and embarrassed by my leaps into the abyss, Jon was like a hand that unexpectedly reached out to me. It wasn’t a matter of whether I was attracted, or not — I just had to grab it. I grabbed — and my attraction grew exponentially.

  Jon has a good story from when he worked as a marine rescue guard in the oceans of the northern California coast. He saved people from drowning, and retrieved corpses from the water. One day, his crew got a message that there was a woman, fully clothed, ranting and raving and dog-paddling out beyond the city wharf. The Fire Department directed one of their swimmers, Logan, to jump in with Jon and swim out to the victim with a raft. Logan approached the woman, his red lifeguard float in front of him, and called out, “Grab onto this.”

  The vic yelled back, “Get that away from me; it’s just an extension of your penis!”

  The woman was a strong swimmer, albeit intoxicated, and not yet fatigued by the cold. Jon swam a little closer to her. He complimented her great swimming; he suggested that they could swim together, that he’d follow her. He was counting on her not being in condition to last out there too much longer. Her fantastic gender lecture notes grew quieter, less frequent. All three of them started paddling down the surf line; as she tired, they harnessed her with the rescue float.

  I think I wore out, too, though perhaps not as gracefully. Pregnancy gave me such a new kind of appetite. I was hungry for someone whose patience preceded him.

  My first trimester was biblical. Each promise, made in great sincerity, came to pass. The family members who drew close to me at that time were in love with Aretha from the time she was an unnamed twinkle. Jon, who is her dad in every sense of devotion. Godmother Honey Lee, her second home. Aunt Temma and Tracey. Auntie Shar. My dad, his wife and family. And my mom, too. For an only child without a ring on my finger, I was loved, and Aretha was cherished, in one abundant circle after another.

  My mom’s the one who sealed the deal on picking her name. I’d been reading baby name books until my eyes were crossed. I sent Elizabeth a list of a few that I liked, including “Aretha.”

  My mother wrote back the next day, with great excitement. “Oh Susie, Aretha is Greek for ‘the very best,’ the most outstanding and virtuous. That is the perfect name for the perfect baby.” She wrote the Greek letters out in cursive.

  Neither of my parents knew one thing about R&B, or about most popular music. The day after I got my mother’s message, my father sent me a color travel postcard of the stone ruins of Goddess Aretha’s Grecian temple, which lies in what is now Turkey.

  Only Bill and Elizabeth, of all the people in the world, would respond to the name “Aretha” with the enthusiasm of the antiquities.

  I knew family ghosts don’t go away. I’ve enjoyed the beneficial ones. But I knew that abuse loves reruns. Penance and exorcisms don’t work. I still needed a plan to keep my promise to be “a good mom,” something stronger than good intentions.

  I would probably lose my equilibrium — or come close to it. I confided to Jon, “If I fuck up, I have to tell another adult what happened, right away, and get some help picking up the pieces.”

  It made Jon cry; he knew how hard this was. He had been raised with the same “discipline methods” and tempers as I was. We were sitting on my bed; I was folding my Grandma Bright’s pillowcases.

  “Plus, if I lose my temper, I have to tell her that I was wrong — and that there’s no excuse for it. …” I looked up at him. “You know, I think you can tell your kid those things no matter how old they are. They know what’s going on.”

  And it came to pass. I remember calling Jon from the pink bathroom in our apartment when Aretha was three. I had yelled at her and pinched her arm hard. I was a dragon. It was over nothing, of course. I had done the full Halloran Vicious Intimidation. It was like falling off a log.

  I can’t see the truth when I’m losing my marbles — but five minutes after the explosion, I can. You imagine you’re going to feel so great when you unload on someone — and instead you despise yourself.

  Jon came over. He stayed and stayed and stayed, and I realized that, wow, proximity to another grown-up was 90 percent of the battle. If there’s more than one of you in the room, one can go crack up and take a cold shower while the other steps in.

  People talk all the time about the benefits of a “couple” taking turns parenting — but let’s face it, there were lot
s of times we could have used a third, and a fourth.

  I broke the physical abuse regime in my family tree. That gives me awestruck pause. But I didn’t stop using my mean mouth with my loved ones. I could take a time machine back two centuries and there would probably be waiting for me a redheaded woman with her freckles practically popping off her face when she loses her temper.

  When Aretha was eleven, she’d reached that age when we could start to have deeper talks about stuff. One day we drove to the drugstore for shampoo and lemonade. I parked the car in the shade and said, “You know, I realize things are usually fine — we work things out when we have a problem. But there’re times when I go off on a tear, and you probably know by now, there’s a tone to my voice when I’m not being rational.”

  She nodded, wary that I was considering a demonstration.

  I wanted to continue without crying. I felt like I was handing her a secret weapon. “I know you can tell from one word when I’m messed up.” I exhaled. “And I want to tell you now — ’cause I can’t tell you when I'm angry — that you should just turn your back and walk away from me.”

  Aretha’s brown eyes got just a little bit bigger. “But you won’t …”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said. “I won’t like it. I’ll try to get you to stay and argue with me. It won’t be cute.”

  She nodded her head, like, Duh.

  “But don’t worry about me; I’ll be fine. As soon as I’m standing alone in a room with no one to hear my bullshit, it’s like a pail of cold water. I sober up fast. I don’t want you to stand there and take it, like I used to; it’s poisonous.

  Aretha winced. She didn’t like hearing about my mom and me, like we had a hereditary bad seed.

  “Honey, seriously, if you stand up to bullies, sometimes all it takes is turning your back on their nonsense. Let ’em try talking to your dust.”

  “But what if you get mad?”

  “I’m already crazy, totally crazy, when I’m in that zone. But when I can’t lash out at you, I come to my senses sooner, and I will always be so sorry. I’ll be so proud of you for not putting up with it.”

  “I don’t know, Mom. Why do you have to go there in the first place?”

  I could see her point. She had that prepubescent wisdom. I think today she would possess more understanding of where an irrational outburst comes from, and more sympathy. But children’s innocence is correct. Why would I need to tell my loved ones to take cover and spray me with Mace if I could just control myself?

  People ask me all the time about how I’ve parented my daughter, hoping for some sex education tips. “When should I say ’X’? When should I tell them ‘Y’?” They want their kids to be confident, sexually savvy, not neurotic like their own generation.

  What you tell your kids is so … secondary. It’s what you do, what you do every day, that they’ll learn from.

  My daughter is capable and caring — I bask in her virtuous light quite unfairly. She is her own doing.

  But if I had to answer parenting questions, how new parents might have a fighting chance to raise a sexually mature and wise young adult, here’s what I’d say:

  Don’t hit them.

  Don’t lie to them.

  Respect their privacy and your own.

  Good food would also be nice — and birthday cakes, and warm coats and mittens, all of that — but I’d say those three actions are the most important.

  Since I first started giving sexual “advice,” I’ve been hearing people’s confessions. What causes the most damage, the biggest problems in people’s sex lives, is when they have been abused within their own family or church.

  Following the heels of that crime is the sin of growing up with terrible lies about who you are, where you came from, what’s happening right in front of your nose. Violence is always part of that original lie: “We’re punishing you because you were bad, Everything is fine, but you better not tell anyone else because it’s all your fault.”

  Finally, privacy. That pearl of quiet and self-awareness. That’s the most nuanced rule to explain. Kids need time to be on their own, to read, to play, to talk to themselves and their stuffed animals, to masturbate, to write, to daydream, to kick a can. And we, their parents, need the same. People who don’t know how to have private moments of clarity are in a difficult spot to grow up.

  When Aretha was fourteen, she came home from basketball practice with another girl, Lorraine, who was a year older than her. Lorraine looked so different from Aretha — physically mature, a head taller. But she followed behind my daughter like a younger sister.

  Aretha took Lorraine’s hand. “L’s worried that she might be pregnant — and she can’t tell her parents, they’ll throw her out.”

  Lorraine pulled her hand back.

  “I told her to come home with me, that you could help her.” She turned back to Lorraine and took her arm again. “Really, it’s going to be okay.”

  I looked at the two of them. I had not taken a girl to the free clinic for a pregnancy exam in nearly thirty years, since I was in The Red Tide.

  I offered Lorraine a chair. “I’ll help you; we both will,“ I said. “There’s a clinic just down the street that will give you a checkup for free, totally private, and all the birth control or medical help you need. That’s their main thing, helping teenagers and people who don’t have their parents to turn to, or a lot of money.”

  Lorraine looked at me through her long blond hair. She had perfect eye makeup. I couldn’t read her.

  “Sweetie, we can do this right now, or tomorrow if you like.” I wanted to bite my nails, but I didn’t want to do that in front of her. “But I have to ask you … are you sure you can’t tell your mom?” Because even if I wasn’t getting along with Aretha, when it comes to something like this, I would want to be the first person on her side.”

  Lorraine shook her head vigorously.

  “Your mom loves you —” I started.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Yeah, but not this. She couldn’t handle it.”

  I said, “You know, we’ll do this, and you’ll get whatever you need, and next time you’ll know how to do it on your own or with your lover. … But you will probably not get to know me — and I’ll never get to know your parents — because I couldn’t stand to get close to your mom and keep a secret like this.

  “You might even be embarrassed to see me later on. …” I traced a pattern on her chair with my finger. “But maybe if you ever tell your mommy, like when you’re thirty, you can call and tell me it’s over, so I can exhale.”

  She laughed, the first time. “I’ll never tell her!” As if, “and you and her would never be friends.”

  We took Lorraine to the Planned Parenthood clinic. She turned out not to be pregnant, but she had pelvic inflammatory disease and anemia — along with four or five other things. The doctors weren’t surprised. I was.

  Aretha and Lorraine giggled over an enormous bag of condoms they were given at the end of the appointment. I looked inside the bag: “God, who’s going to live long enough to use all these?”

  My activism was always maternal, and I never knew it before Aretha. I knew the fight in me was creative, erotic, intellectual, historic — but I never knew it had a nurturing engine.

  Motherhood is not for all. I wanted to be parented, very much — and I thought I wouldn’t be good at parenting anyone else. It turned out the opposite: I could mother someone, even more than one — and it was like the balm that makes the burn go away. I turned out to have a thing for wearing aprons, and kissing tears away, and holding on tight.

  Aging Badly

  I wasn’t ready for Debi’s reaction the day she got cut from the Mitchell Brother’s club dancer schedule. After seven years of continuous stripping service for the most elite club in town, she did not see it coming — I don’t think any veteran does.

  I knew something bad happened. She picked me up in her Saab and started gunning down Divisadero Street, through the Castro, barreling on T
wenty-fourth, barely missing babies in strollers.

  “What is it?” I asked. I wanted to grab her hand, but I was afraid to touch her.

  “It’s what I always told you; it’s what I told everyone: They call you in, and you’re telling them you don’t want to work Wednesdays next month, and all of a sudden, they’re like, ‘Why don’t you take a break; we don’t have anything open right now.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Yeah, right! What does it mean? That’s the temptation, to ask, like it’s not dawning on you? And Vince is like, ‘Maybe it’s time for a change,’ and then you’re sitting there —”

  “I don’t understand, you’ve been making the same money you always have; you look exactly the same!” My attempt at comfort.

  “That doesn’t matter. They have a new lineup of eighteen-year-olds, and so it’s snip, snip, snip at the other end.” Debi rolled down all the windows. The wind was fierce.

  “Red light!” I yelled at Folsum Street. I wondered if she had control of the door-locking mechanism as well.

  We were waiting at the light. Some vato, his baseball cap low over his eyes, walked up to the car, leaned in on the Debi’s windowsill, and made a play:

  “Where you goin’ tonight, beautiful ladies?”

  Debi didn’t say one word to him. She took her cigarette out of her mouth, exhaled, and with one sweep of her hand crushed out the butt — on our visitor’s forearm. He yanked his arm off the door just at the embers reached his short and curlies.

  “Fuckin’ bitch!” He stumbled onto the asphalt.

  Deb flicked the fag on the ground and just sat there. The light turned green. “This is a setback,” she said.

  And that is the last rational word we had on the subject.

  Debi set about marrying one of her customers from the O’Farrell. She was in love with the idea of pulling a fairy-tale ending out of a bag full of shit.