Two
[admin / April 5th, 2011 / Young Bright Things ]
I saw the film, “Showgirls,” with a friend in 1995. We were alone in the theater. I loved the movie from the get go, my instant-fierce love. The film received terrible reviews though; everyone said how bad Elizabeth Berkley was as Nomi Malone.
I’ve seen the movie dozens of times. I own it. Nomi is breathtaking every time. You know the poem by Robert Frost? The road not taken is never too far from the one you took. Nomi was a sad person, but she laid the mask on thick: false eyelashes and lipstick. She was neon and pissed.  I identified with her anger mostly, all that defiance and glare. I was afraid of her too. The road not taken. Her name was Nomi Malone. Nomi. Like, no me. Or every one.
Nomi spent a great deal of time in the film insisting, “I’m not a whore.” Except she was.Â
When my mother was young, right after she left my father, she was only twenty at the time, she joined a rock band and went to California and tried to become a star. She never talked about the experience. I don’t think there was much to tell.
I joined a rock band once. Two weeks later, I returned to waitressing. I was nineteen and booed off stage in Gunnison Colorado. Two years later, I went back as Miss Coors Extra Gold and signed posters and posed with college boys for pictures and was almost mobbed. I liked being a model. I liked the male gaze on me. After a while, you’re a prisoner though: how important the pretty was. In the movie, Nomi Malone told a male dancer, “You can fuck me when you love me.” Who loved her though? Maybe Gina Gershon’s character. Ultimately. They recognized one another, like looking into a mirror.  Â
When my mother left California, she returned to Colorado. Her family was in Utah. My father was in Colorado. They ran into each other in a Dennys. He sat down on a stool beside her. They started to talk. Pretty soon a second man sat on the other side of my mother. She left the restuarant with him. In Colorado, my mother got involved in drugs and prostitution. She was on a “Most Wanted” list. My mother was busted for “solicitation and possession with intent to sell.” She worked as a hooker for an unspecified amount of time, a year or two maybe. She went to prison. And we all make mistakes.
Also, how do we differientiate?
When I was in college, a young man told me writing erotica was equivocal to prostitution. I’d just begun publishing stories in erotic anthologies and was proud of my publications. This guy burst my bubble. ”You’re selling sex,” he said. “You’re a whore.”
If that’s true, I wonder how I justify punishing my mother with her past the way I did? There’s more to it, actually, but I can’t tell who’s reading my column anymore. People who could use information against me. I know that. And you wonder why so many women use pen names. Boom! Maybe I’m paranoid because I used my mother’s past against her. I judged her; I punished her, and so why wouldn’t someone else punish me? Hey, it’s already happened. We judge each other all the time. Therefore I remain veiled and hypocritical. I suck.
Years ago, I had this reoccuring nightmare: a mob was stoning me to death. But maybe I was the mob and the woman we stoned to death was my mother. I didn’t want anyone to know who she was or how she left me, how abandoned I felt. I didn’t want to be her either. I didn’t want anyone to think that of me. Big fucking whore. Well, what if I was?
Last week, my father said I was a product of my environment, not genetics. In ”Showgirls,” Nomi Malone’s father shot her mother in front of her then shot himself. She was a product of violence. This is supposed to explain her. I could explain my mother too. She never knew her father; she had more than one stepfather, and her mother was so oblivious and checked out most the time, one of those stepfathers raped my mother when she was a child. That’s what she said. My mother married my father to escape. My mother was a life long escapee.Â
“I’m a rogue,” she told me once. She was on the run. A consummate drifter. No roots. No ties, nothing. I think she was pissed; I thing she was confused; I think she was afraid. A No Me. Really.
Last week I read this article in People Magazine about a woman who wrote a memoir about forgiving her stepfather for molesting her. I wonder if my mother forgave the man who raped her? The article demonstrated a problem of language though, specifically a problem of distance, so ultimately a lack of responsbility. The sentence was written in the passive voice and went something like, ”She woke one night to her stepfather’s hands feeling her.” No. She woke one night and felt her stepfather feeling her up with his hands. Big difference. I’ve been thinking about this. How do you forgive someone’s hands?
You can’t.
In the past I’ve written, “My mother abandoned me to become a hooker.” Not, “After abandoning me, my mother became a hooker.” There’s a difference. In the first my mother left me in favor of life as a hooker. In the second, she left and became a hooker. So I guess it matters, and then it doesn’t. What I mean is, when my son was born, I took one look at him and fell madly in love. When I was born, my mother didn’t fall in love with me. She didn’t experience the same rush of hormones, all that biology. Is that her fault? A woman who lacks the maternal instinct is unnatural, right? Big fucking whore. Â
That’s easier.
It’s not.
I’ve spent my lifetime seeking a mother. The one I could model myself after. My Genesis, a teacher, my mirror. You know how important it is? The Mother. I’ve rejected her, time after time, one after another. I go through them. I’m disappointed. Like feelings of abandonment, she’s a ghost.
Very thought provoking. Feelings and sentiment well expressed.
Thank you for giving this prospective. Love reading your column.
As always, you move me to tears.
I never know what to say. This column is probably my favorite thing on the web.
Beautifully written.
Alana, I love Showgirls as well. I felt that it was a powerful film and I just don’t get the negative reviews at all…I never have, never will.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, I love reading what you write.
Thank you for writing, never stop.
<3
I wish I could be your mother and you my mother. I wish we could all be each other’s mothers, and kinder.
At least perhaps from loss we learn some ineffable wisdom, at least it seems that you have.
I wish you solace, and thank you for your kindness.
ah A.,
i have no words…because i always gave you my best words..and these best words are still the same i would give you now
we once emailed about how similar we feel..and how similar our past is…
lay your past next to mine and i might will not see where yours ends and mine beginns..
Alana, another amazing post. Forgiveness and understanding go hand in hand, imho. We write to try and understand, maybe because we want to be able to forgive, but can’t. Not really. So we keep writing
And if writing erotica makes me a whore in some people’s eyes, so be it.
I’ve never seen that movie. I’d listened to the reviews. Reading what you’ve said has made me want to see it.
There is a difference. The way we use language is as fundamental as the way we use our hands.
Thank you for this, Alana.