Tara Ison - Reeling Through Life - How I Learned to Live, Love and Die at the Movies

No, of course not. This is not some 1960s melodrama, I am no wilting and broken Tennessee Williams heroine, my young man is no oily gigolo, and unlike Karen I have no unsettling doubt at all that my beautiful male partner desires me for myself. I still might wonder about the why , but I do not doubt the sincerity or intensity of his attraction to me — his lack of guile is almost quaint. And if he actually is just using me for sex. . well, good Lord, I tingle to think, how thrilling is that, to be deemed usable, at my age, for sex?

But it also seems, surprisingly, a little more than that. At least for him. We have virtually nothing in common — food and sex can just about carry us through an evening, but. . — and I have assumed this will be the briefest of carnal flings, a one or two or three nights’ stand, maybe a couple of weeks (which is fine, I tell myself, three or four weeks is all I need ) and then the thrill — of novelty? of conquest? — will fade. But months pass, and he makes clear he considers this a “relationship,” that what we have is “real”; he wants dinners and movies and that cuddling on the couch, he abjures the idea we are mere fuck buddies or friends with benefits. He uses the language of emotional intimacy, of lovers, of boyfriend-and-girlfriend, and I am bemused by his earnestness.

Nevertheless, I am clear this “relationship” isn’t going to go anywhere or last very long, as I insist to my friends, the few friends I have told the story of this young man — I am both proud of and embarrassed by this little arrangement, have found myself, in response to a teasing slew of “Mrs. Robinson” jokes, repeatedly asserting that he pursued me ; I am no leopard-skin predator. (At the same time stressing that seventeen years’ difference between us — that number has become magically arousing to me, a geometric proof of desirability, an erotic math.) I announce that I am simply carpe diem — ing for a while, indulging in an amusing and diverting experience. One friend congratulates me for finding a boy toy, another wants explicit details of the raunchy sex with my “young dude,” another refers to him as my “new puppy,” and I chuckle along. They all seem a little envious, which pleases me; I am no sad stock character, no ridiculous, pathetic figure of fun.

But my friends, at the same time, also express concern that I will wind up getting hurt — and this I find annoying. Why assume I am the vulnerable one in this, that I will be the one to suffer, to pay some price? Is it just a given that an older woman, at some point, cannot possibly hold the sexual interest of a younger man? Is that tick tick tick ing so predestined? Can’t my story be different? Am I not hot enough, am I not special enough to defy a supposed biological imperative, to beat that anthropological clock?

I’m certainly no poor Ruth Popper, right?

The Last Picture Show, like The Graduate, seems like one ofthose films I have never not seen — but, as with The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone , I find my perspective on the story and my investment in the characters has changed over the years. . 91At one time I identified, or wanted to identify, with Jacy (Cybill Shepherd), the nubile blond number in this desolate 1950s Texas town whom all the boys — and men — want. But the storyline that now both fascinates and disconcerts is the relationship between eighteen-year-old Sonny (twenty-year-old Timothy Bottoms, sad and child-eyed) and older housewife Ruth Popper (Oscar-winner Cloris Leachman, also sad-eyed, forty-five but playing forty). I had only ever seen Cloris Leachman as the nutty and narcissistic Phyllis from The Mary Tyler Moore Show , and it was a bit shocking to see her in this role — she is timid and matronly, all clumsy movements and stammering speech, hair in a prim twist. Sonny has been charged by the high school football coach to drive his wife, Ruth, to a doctor’s appointment; afterward, she invites Sonny in for a soda, “If you can stand me a few more minutes. .,” then weepily apologizes for taking up his time. She is the anti-Mrs. Robinson, the opposite of Karen’s chic sophistication, poor plain dear.

But there is something there between them, timid housewife and despondent teen: They are both living, as Paolo once manipulatively alluded to, a life of lonely drifting, and they recognize that in each other’s sad, sad eyes. They begin an affair that is painfully poignant in its awkwardness, both of them so terrified they can barely manage to undress. Their first sex is quick and unsatisfying, and Ruth weeps again with. . what? Fear? Relief? Disappointment? Hope?

RUTH

I’m sorry I cried. Just scared, I guess. . scared I could never do this, I guess. I can’t seem to do anything without crying about it. How could you like me?

SONNY

I like you.

RUTH

I’m glad. .

As the relationship continues, it is less about lust — it was never really about lust, anyway, unlike my relationship with my lusty young man — and more about a domestic companionship, a nourishing balm to their loneliness; they have both been reawakened to an emotionally alive life. Ruth serves Sonny cookies and milk, brushes his hair, dreams of buying “them” a new quilt for “their” bed, her face aglow with tenderness, with purpose. And while she has become happily maternal (which I am decidedly not , in my lusty feelings toward my young man), she also seems younger than both Ruth’s age and Cloris Leachman’s actual older age; her bliss and the black-and-white cinematography have softened the contours of her features, making her delicately beautiful. She is genuinely in love. But while Sonny has also grown attached to their intimacy — another sweet young man with no guile, he has never wanted anything from her but herself — he nevertheless abandons Ruth the moment the manipulative Jacy, in a pique of petulant boredom, invites him out for a burger and fries and a makeout session with her firm young body. . leaving poor Ruth Popper sitting on “their” new quilt on “their” bed, all dressed up pretty and waiting for her young man, who will never come again.

Until the end of the story. Jacy dumps Sonny, his buddy Duane heads off to Korea, his friend Billy gets hit by a truck and killed, and Sonny is once again living a posthumous existence in a dying town, aimless and emotionally numb. He shows up at Ruth’s door, asks if he could have a cup of coffee with her — she is stunned to see him, embarrassed by her disheveled hair, her frumpy robe. She seems emotionally renumbed as well, back to looking her sad-eyed age; she looks even older than Cloris Leachman’s actual older age. She apologizes for her robe, allows him in, tries to pour some coffee, her hands shaking — and then hurls the cup against the wall, allows herself the release of anger:

RUTH

Why am I always apologizing to you, you little bastard? Three months I’ve been apologizing to you, without you even being here! I haven’t done anything wrong. . You’re the one made me quit caring if I got dressed or not. I guess just ’cause your friend got killed you want me to forget what you did and make it all right? I’m not sorry for you. You’d’ve left Billy, too, just like you left me! I bet you left him plenty of nights, whenever Jacy whistled!

I guess you thought I was so old and ugly you didn’t owe me any explanation. You didn’t need to be careful of me. There wasn’t anything I could do about you and her, why should you be careful of me? You didn’t love me. .

You shouldn’t have come here. I’m around that corner now. You’ve ruined it. It’s lost, completely. Just your needing me won’t make it come back.