William Vollmann: Whores for Gloria

Another happy story — I guess I didn't finish that one but anyway it was a memory — was of Christmas time as a young child. The first part of Christmas usually started with going to pick out a huge Christmas tree in the wee morning hours at this supermarket called the Co-op where we used to get our Christmas tree every year, and everybody was frantically out there, dressed up in their heavy clothes — topcoat and boots, maybe, and a hat — scrumming around looked for these Christmas trees. I remember the smell of it still. Then finally by daylight we'd finally find something that was suitable, and I remember dragging it to the car and taking it home and later trimming it. It was just the three of us, though — me, my mom and my dad. Pretty soon that tree started to die, and by Christmas time it was completely dead with needles all over the floor and my mother screaming and vacuuming them up. Anyway, that was the start of the Christmas season. Then I guess the middle part of it was taken up with school things. Learning songs for the Christmas show we'd put on for the parents. Learning some old tacky Christmas carol to sing, everyone's voice singing so ugly and everyone saying that sounds so beautiful. — Melissa laughed in disgust. — And then finally getting all dressed up and on Christmas morning singing it for the parents. And another part of that was towards the end kind of getting antsy, wondering what Santa was going to bring. To this day I think I was the oldest person ever to believe in Santa Claus. I remember when I was eight being told by my mother that there was no Santa and just breaking down in tears and stuff 'cause I didn't want to hear it. 'Cause just a year and a half or so before she'd spank me for trying to tell her that I'd heard there was no Santa. Crazy woman. OK, enough about that.

What other happy stories? Let's see, said Melissa as the lights glared brighdy down and washing machines hissed and the big pipe hissed beside her, I guess, going shopping with my mom downtown on Saturday afternoons and finally toward the end of the day going to pick up my dad from work and feeling so tired and all the city blocks seemed like a mile long, you know, being a kid. I remember getting grumpy, nothing seeming quite right. It was fun, it was exciting, but it was so overwhelming. Usually I started to cry. Well, come to think of it I guess that wasn't so happy either.

What else? Other happy times as a kid. — Melissa laughed. — I don't know. It doesn't seem like there are so many. — Oh, OK. Getting a puppy. That was kind of neat. There was this pet shop that my mom and I used to go to. Sometimes there'd be an animal there that you could almost feel you were going to take home, but not quite. But then one day there was this little German shepherd puppy that my parents saw. I guess they kind of wanted the dog for safety more than to have for a pet. But I remember the excitement of getting a new pet. I remember going down to look at it one day and playing around and feeling like you got a new friend. And the anticipation of wanting to go back next day and pick it up, or just see the little thing. And finally the next day came, and we brought the puppy home, and it was a really neat feeling. I'd wake up in my bed at night and know he was still down there, and he'd be there the next day and the next, and it was a really neat feeling. I didn't know there was going to be the flip side later, when the dog got too big, and they decided to give it away. That was really sad — She laughed. — For every really neat thing, there was some equally shitty thing, seems like.

Jimmy was smiling; he was leaning back against a column of washing machines, fingering Melissa's memories as though they were breasts, the softness and succulence of them; he could twist them into different shapes as he sucked on them; he kissed their round pink areolae of sadness and tried not to mind them; he squeezed them and their nipples budded.

Let's see, Melissa said. What else? Oh, OK. Going to the movies as a kid was a big thing for me, going on Saturdays and in the afternoon. It was different than when you went with your parents. Adults seemed much bigger than they were, from a kid's eyes. You'd tilt your head up to look at 'em and it was like looking at a redwood tree or something. In the afternoon there was nothing but kids, people your size, going to see all the same stupid movies. It was a neat feeling to sit there with your popcorn and whatever you bought. You had your own money, and you could buy whatever junk you wanted to buy. You didn't have to listen to your mom and dad tell you don't get that junk. You could just eat and eat and eat and eat whatever you wanted, until you got sick. That was neat. It was also a neat feeling being able to crawl around the movie theater in the dark, being able to go upstairs and spook yourself out on the balcony and play with your friends.

A neat thing I tripped on when I was young was the feeling you got from going into unique little places you'd never been before. Like I remember the first time I found a creek that was by my house. It was like my own private little place. I felt like I was the first person ever to find this place. I remember the smell of it. It just smelled so wet and damp and neat. If darkness could have a smell, it seems like being by the creek smelled dark. The trees and the sound of the water and the squishiness under your feet had a dark smell to it that was nice. But it also had a new feel to it like something exciting that had never happened before. I don't feel that so much as an adult. In fact I don't feel that much at all.

Let's see. What else? Uh, happy happy happy happy happy.. Hmm. Gosh, this is getting hard now.

That's when it gets interesting, said Jimmy.

The whore laughed nervously. I don't know, she said. I had a really kind of uninteresting childhood. I wasn't from a big family. I was the only one, actually. The only child, so there wasn't a whole bunch of horsing around. It seems like looking back on childhood all the small things seem really small.

Goofing around in church, that was fun. Getting someone else to laugh, or having a little joke, or you knew and your friend knew when you gave him that signal that that was what you were supposed to think about. Little rush of good feeling you got from doing it and knowing that somehow it was kind of wrong, and somehow that made it all the more exciting.

Was tricking fun for you like that? said Jimmy. (He was an optimist too.)

Well, it's never really been fun , Melissa said. Most of the fun I get out of it's the money.

Later he said to himself after all they're her memories not Gloria's but then he said after all I paid for them.

What else? said Melissa sighing to herself when he left her. Happy happy stories.

Home again

Jimmy went back to the Hotel Bailey, where he was staying for eighty-five dollars a week, and Pearl looked up from the TV program she was watching and smiled at Jimmy with her snaggly old teeth because Pearl was always friendly and nice and Jimmy said hey Pearl any messages for me? and because Pearl was so nice she made a show of looking in Jimmy's mailbox and said no I thought maybe there was something but not today I guess, and Jimmy sighed and said I was hoping maybe Gloria might have gotten in touch with me and Pearl said not today and Jimmy said here's my rent for the next three days and Pearl said thanks honey I'll give it to the boss and Jimmy said well I guess I'll go up and use the bathroom and Pearl said so you want some toilet paper then? and Jimmy said yeah and Pearl tore off a nice long hunk for Jimmy and passed it to him through the window. — (At the Hotel Bailey they had given up keeping toilet paper in the bathroom because as fast as they put it there it got stolen.)

Jimmy went upstairs and used the bathroom and went down the hall along the sea of old carpet that looked like lichen and dog hair and came away under his shoes as he stepped on it. He met a man standing in the center of the corridor and Jimmy said excuse me and the man didn't say anything so Jimmy went politely around him and unlocked the door of 108 and went inside where his stinking bed waited to embrace him.