From The Readers Digest, April, 1946:
from Cartoon Quips:
"Boss replying to employee asking for a raise: ‘Of course you’re worth
more than you’re getting, Morton. Why don’t you let up a bit?"
B. Tobey in The Saturday Evening Post
How old was I when the work came up? I think I was already in my teens, fifteen or almost sixteen. So much had changed for me after Granny Elaine died and Mr. Compton and Tooie came along. For boys it’s not the same as with the girls. They have a natural tendency toward the work, at least the girls in my family, my mother and my sister Brianna at least, had a natural bent in that direction. Mother had given it all up when she married father and got pregnant. I know she sometimes regretted that, but she had been a good mother and she loved both of us so it wasn’t exactly the hardship it might have been for her. And she had father and he had given up the straight and narrow for "the life." And we were all happy and healthy and living well.
Mother was the first one to wonder about me. On my thirteenth birthday she sat me down alone in the living room and talked to me about the family business. We talked a long time and she told me many things. Now, some of it I knew from my talks with Granny Elaine but some of it was new and different... very different. Mother told me about boys and what they sometimes did and I have to say it was a pretty horrible thing to hear about from your mother.
"I don’t need to know much more do I?" I asked her when she took a breath after discussing oral sex.
"Oh, yes, Maxie," she said, "there’s so much more."
"I don’t want to know about it."
"Well, all right, not today, then."
"Not ever," I said adamantly. "I don’t want to know anything else."
"You’re young. You’ll get curious."
"Why? Why would I get curious?"
"You’re a boy," she said. "Boys want to know things."
"Not me," I assured her. "I already know more than I want to know."
I was embarrassed because the talk about erections and things had given me one and I didn’t like that sensation. It had happened to me several times that summer at the beach and, wearing a tight, stretchy bathing suit instead of the old-fashioned loose boxer short types I had been feeling terribly humiliated. I didn’t know what was going on or why. I only knew it made me feel ashamed of myself, made me want to hide. I used a beach towel to cover my loins until the painful swelling went down.
Somehow I knew that I hadn’t been bitten by a sandcrab or a mosquito, that this was the first flush of sexuality. That only increased my fears that someone would notice, might point or giggle or even laugh at me. I was insecure enough without people laughing at me. Later visits to the beach I always wore a big, long shirt that covered me to the knees, just in case it happened again and it always, invariably did. I felt better knowing I could hide beneath my Hawaiian tunic and not be revealed as the pervert I felt I was becoming.
Now, just a few years later, Mother was talking to me about sex and business. This wasn’t what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about cars and about school and about my new friend Freddy, a girl I had met in Central Park who had fallen off stilts. Freddy was the first girl I had met who didn’t behave badly with me. She was accepting and nice and didn’t challenge me too much and didn’t seem to want to always grab me and kiss me. I wanted to tell Mother about her, but Mother never seemed to be interested in my friends. Except for Tooie and Mr. Compton, of course. She always wanted to know about them.
I had been seeing them from time to time and, just recently, just after my fifteenth birthday, they had taken me out to dinner at the Hotel Carlisle and we had gone, afterward, to a nightclub and heard Mel Tormé sing. That had been very special for me. I had seen him in the movies and on the Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights, but I had never seen him up close before.
I was surprise to learn that he wasn’t much taller than me. I had suffered a growth spurt at twelve and again at fourteen and shot up five inches in each year. My clothes, naturally, didn’t fit me too well and I looked a bit like an out-of-towner, some hick from the sticks who had come to New York to become something better without an inkling of how to go about it. But Mel was about my height and his clothes were perfect, a tuxedo with a frilly shirtfront and a thin black bow-tie. His blonde hair had a kind of flip in the front that gave him a jaunty, angular look that seemed to pull his mouth into a sly smile. He sang songs I loved, songs my Granny Elaine knew. I mentioned that to Tooie and to Mr. Compton and they just nodded.
"We knew he’d sing some of the old standards, Max," Tooie said. "We hoped that would be okay with you."
They knew it would be because they knew my taste was like my dead grandmother’s taste. They both knew where my best education had come from when I was a kid.
"I love it," I said. "This is a great gift. Thanks."
Tormé had just broken into Judy Garland’s big hit ‘Over the Rainbow’ and he shot a glance in our direction. I smiled at him and he smiled back on the words in the verse about someday wishing on a star and I knew, right then, what they really meant. I knew about longing for a different life, a different place but right then and there I was content to be where I was and who I was, knowing that the yearning could, and probably would, return for something else.
"Want a real drink?" Mr. Compton asked me. I smiled and was about to say that I had already had one, when Tooie slapped him on the wrist.
"Don’t corrupt the boy, Vin," she said.
"Corrupt? I just thought he’d like a fruit drink like a Screwdriver."
"You’re bad, you are."
"Tooie, it won’t hurt him."
"I think it’s a bad idea."
I shushed them. Tormé was singing beautifully and I didn’t want to have to cup my hands over my ears just to hear him. It seemed like he was singing just for me and I was really getting into it. Besides, I thought quickly so I could get it over with, I didn’t want a ‘real’ drink. I was fine with my Shirley Temple.
When the song ended and we were applauding I turned to Mr. Compton and explained that I didn’t want a drink, but he had already ordered me one, so I just took it, thanked him and took a sip before setting it down on the table. I liked the taste of it and in a few seconds I felt a kind of buzz in gullet and then in my head that I couldn’t explain, so I assumed it was the liquor in the mixture. I looked at Mr. Compton and he grinned at me, so I grinned back at hi. I was having a smiley night.
When the set was over and the jazz singer had retired from the stage, we got into a conversation. Tooie was a big fan and Mr. Compton was too, so the three of us could compare our notes and feel confident that the discussion would be important. While we talked I finished the drink.
It was getting late and I had school the next day, so Tooie suggested they take me home. Mr. Compton thought it a good idea, so he called for the check, but Tooie slapped him again and said she’d take care of it. I got up to go to the men’s room and left them squabbling over the bill. I hadn’t been in the toilet long when the door opened and Mr. Compton came in. He took up a position in the next stall and without a word we did our business. I felt odd standing next to him. I knew he was always comparing me to Granny Elaine, seeing in my face something of hers. While I liked that, it also made me uncomfortable and I felt his eyes on me there and then. Without speaking we both finished up, washed our hands and left the men’s room.
"Where’s Tooie?" I asked him. I had looked for her in the vestibule of the club but didn’t see her.
"She’s gone home, Max. I’ll take you back to the apartment."
"You don’t have to, Mr. Compton," I said. "I can get home."
"Nonsense," he replied. "I just gave you an alcoholic drink and you’re just a kid. I’ll take you home and no back-talk."
There seemed to be no other option so I nodded and we left the building. Cabs were lined up waiting for club patrons to emerge, so we had no wait. I got in and Mr. Compton followed quickly. He gave the cabbie my address and we sat back against the green leather seat. He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in close to him.
"How did you enjoy your birthday, Max?"
"It was great. Thanks so much."
"We wanted to be with you, Tooie and me both."
"Well, thank you for that. I love both of you."
"You’re very sweet, young man."
"Okay, but I’m not really," I said. "I can be pretty bad at times."
"Oh? How bad is pretty bad?"
"Pretty bad."
"Do you know how much you remind me of your grandmother?" he asked me.
"I think I do, yes."
"No, I don’t think so. I don’t think you do."
He put his free hand under my chin and tipped my head backward a bit so that I was staring up at him.
"Close your eyes, Max. Please. I want to give you something."
"What?"
"Something of your Grandmother’s. Something that belongs to Lainie."
"Oh." I was surprised and little nervous when he said that, but I did what he asked. For a second or two nothing happened, but then I felt his breath on my face, then his lips touching mine and then his tongue tickling my closed mouth. A rush of emotions engulfed me. My head felt feverish and my feet and hands were like ice. Then he was sitting up again and it was over. But I had an erection and I was embarrassed and I didn’t know what to say.
"That was for her, Max, not for you," he said quietly. "I miss her so much."
"I miss her too, Mr. Compton," I said very quietly, so quietly I wasn’t sure he heard me.
"I won’t do that again, Max. I assure you. But I had to this time, okay?"
I nodded and shortly after that the cab pulled up to my building and I moved quickly to the door and opened it outward.
"Thank you for tonight, Mr. Compton. Please thank Tooie for me, too, please."
The cab pulled away and he was gone. I was feeling better, standing up in the cool night air. I went up to the apartment and by the time I got there I was fine.
It was sometime after that when my mother decided to talk to me about the work. I was either near sixteen, or just sixteen, but it was a time when birthdays no longer held any magic for me. She had talked about sex between consenting adult men and that had surprised me when I was thirteen. Now, as she brought it up again, I remembered the kiss in the cab and knew that was sort of where she was heading with her chat, but I didn’t want her to know about Mr. Compton and his looks and his touches and his kiss. I had never told anyone about it and I wasn’t going to do that now.
She had told me about her life and about my sister’s success. She had talked about a few other people we knew and about my Dad and his work at the hotel. She was discussing the practical aspects of prostitution and the care, cleanliness and attitude toward the work that had distinguished her family from the ordinary whores on the corners or the call girls. We were a family with a family business and we were different from the others.
I had moved away from her after we stopped talking and just outside the living room I had a thought, so I went back in. She was where I had left her, but she wasn’t looking in my direction. Instead she was gazing at nothing, her eyes trained on the pull at the bottom of the braided cord on the window shade. I watched for a while, hoping she would break her concentration and notice me again, but she didn’t.
"Momma," I said and she turned slowly to look at me, "why did you talk to me about sex and men when I was still a kid? And why are we talking about it again now?"
"You’re a young man," she said. "You need to know about your nature and where it might take you."
"My nature?"
"I’m your mother, Maxie, and I know you better than you know yourself."
"What does that mean?"
"You a pretty boy, Max. Pretty boys attract older men."
"I don’t."
"You do." She said it so simply I had to believe it. "I watch when we’re out and I see the effect you have on them."
"I didn’t know...."
"I know that. You’re an innocent, maybe the last one in the world, Maxie. I don’t want you to be unprepared for things."
"I’m not such an innocent."
I had a secret and I wanted to share it with her but I hadn’t because there were other people involved.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "What secrets are you hiding from me?"
"There’s..." I couldn’t go on.
"Max. Tell me, please."
"Not now, not today," I said and I ran from the room. My mother had seen my secret before I knew it myself. She had glimpsed the truths I couldn’t acknowledge because I had no words for them at the time. My mother was my confessor because she knew what I would say if I could say it.
And, at just about sixteen, I had a secret that was even more important than my little kiss in the cab with Mr. Compton. I just wasn’t ready to share it with anyone. Not even with my mother.
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