Relative or Whore?

When I was twelve years old, my grandparents moved from San Francisco to Joshua Tree, California, which is a little village in the middle of the hot Mojave Desert. My grandfather, who always wore a white dress shirt, an undershirt, a pocket protector, black-rimmed glasses with a strap running around to the back, a money belt, navy dress slacks, and running shoes, now changed his uniform entirely to something that he formerly would have considered "underwear": running shorts and an undershirt, tennis shoes, glasses. The change in climate was the culprit. He also took to wearing two cans of Mace clipped to his belt, a beebee gun, a hunting knife, and a big stick. All of this was quite practical, wild dogs being what they were back then. Nevertheless, for me, it took a little bit of getting used to.

His new friends in this hot climate ("this god-forsaken place," as my grandmother often called it) were similarly offended by any actual clothing. One of his hiking partners that he introduced me to, a woman, only wore shoes, a sports bra, and shorts, and she also carried a stick. She was always dressed like that, as were all of the few other people in the Polaroid pictures that Grandpa stuck into his photo album, the one with a San Francisco street car on the cover.

Grandpa was always a very physical guy. In his youth, he had been a professional boxer, a wrestler, and then later, before it was cool and then not cool and then cool again, he took to running fifty or more miles a week. In spite of being incredibly athletic, he was always old. I don't know how that works. Don't ask. But everyone who ever knew him said he was already old when they met him. And this was his favorite thing to say: "I'm getting old, you know."

I can't quite pinpoint when it happened, but there was a point in my life when my grandpa seemed to think it was okay to talk to me about matters sexual. "That woman at the Circle K approached me again. She things I will give her money. She's a whore, you know. Of course, I'm completely impotent." He was careful, when he said this, to say it when my grandmother was out of hearing range (or so he thought- she heard everything he said) because he didn't want to offend her. I was offended that he should share his impotence with me, but I held my tongue on that, although I asked,

"What? Are you sure she was a prostitute?"

"Oh, yes, yes, I'm sure. You don't believe me, honey, but you don't know."

A few years later, I asked him about his old hiking partner.

"Oh, I don't like to associate much with her anymore," he said. Not waiting for a reply, he continued, "Yes, I used to be quite close with her, and then I found out she was a prostitute! Yes, she and her husband. You don't believe me, but it's true. They invited me back to their house."

"But- they didn't invite you back to their house for that? Maybe they were just being friendly?"

"Oh, no. They were quite clear."

There was never any arguing with him. It was sort of amusing and puzzling and infuriating to me, all at once.

Then, when we got to talking about the forties with him, the war, how his brother was a swinger with a new girlfriend every week-end, in addition to his wife, and (as if that weren't enough, to have the world's first swinger in the family,) apparently a family friend,

"...was a whore. You see, her husband only gave her five dollars a week to live on, and no woman can live on five dollars a week. She just couldn't do it! So, she found other means. She had to."

"You're sure she was a prostitute? Really? I mean, it seems like you know an awful lot of prostitutes."

"She gave me her business card! It was at the Christmas party. I got very embarrassed, you know. I didn't know what to say! She said if I ever needed anything, just call her. "

The only women whom Grandpa never suspected of being working girls were those who were related to him. It didn't have to be a close relative, thank goodness. You could be related by marriage, or even by divorce, and still be chaste in his book. Those women not related, however, were clearly suspect.

Grandpa was very athletic. I wonder if women found him attractive and made passes at him, but he just never quite took it the right way? Perhaps he was supremely modest, and didn't understand that they weren't asking for money. Or perhaps Joshua Tree, California, is an especially attractive local for certain specialty industries. It's just hard to say.