Mother, Can You Not? (14 page)

D
on’t talk to strangers.
This was my mother’s mantra during my childhood, but as with everything she says, it usually had an interesting twist.

“SPAWN, DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS! Because if you do, you will get put in a dirty van with blacked-out windows and kidnapped. We
have
our own dogs, so you don’t need to go chasing after a stranger with puppies or kittens. Because again, if you do, you
will
get kidnapped and never see your father or me again…Okay, Katie, have a good day at school!”

This led to a great deal of anxiety as a child and a lot of me shouting, “STRANGER DANGER! THAT MAN’S A PEDOPHILE!” at innocent people in parks who were just trying to walk their dogs. My mother always encouraged this behavior, smiling as I shamed upstanding orthodontists and respectable lawyers,
chasing them out of Barrington Dog Park with my screams.

While she lauded
my
hostile approach to anyone unfamiliar, my mother has never, ever followed the rule “Don’t talk to strangers.” She talks to virtually everyone she encounters, and she has that indefinable quality, that rare sparkle, that instantly puts people at ease. Incidentally, she would make an excellent kidnapper.

You could drop her in a room filled with silent Tibetan monks, and within sixty seconds, she would have Kalsang dishing about that
fucking
Chodak, and his
bullshit need
to be at the front during morning meditation.
WE GET IT, CHODAK. YOU PRAY THE HARDEST!

I cannot count the number of times I’ve gotten a text or an email or thirty voicemails raving about her new best friend whom she just accosted at Starbucks or the gym. I think the reason strangers open up to her so freely is because she is genuinely interested in hearing their stories and helping if she can. Deep down, she’s a huge softy, so when she encounters someone with a broken wing, her immediate impulse is to shove
them up her vaginal canal, rebirth them, and raise them properly.

My mother has high standards when it comes to bringing people into her inner circle, though. She has no interest in wasting time on someone who doesn’t love her for exactly who she is. Often, she will ask a potential new friend about their thoughts on Brazilian waxing and the resemblance of sheared vaginas to the crotches of prepubescent children, just to test them. Have to make sure they’re a big enough weirdo to hang with her and not run away at the first whisper of pubic hair. And using this technique, my mom has amassed a collection of fascinating strangers who have become her nearest and dearest friends.

One of her most interesting companions is a Jewish gay male strip club entrepreneur named Jeffrey. My mother and I met Jeffrey at a casting call for
Gay Jersey Shore
. His life story is fascinating: Jeff grew up destitute in Brooklyn, dropped out of middle school, and became one of the biggest drug dealers in the Tri-State area in order to take care of his family. Some of the anecdotes from his life as a gay Jewish teenage
drug dealer are unreal—he even went to jail, but that’s a whole other book,
*
¹
and he has long since turned his life around. The moment my mother and Jeffrey bonded, male strippers became a part of my daily reality.

“Oh, you’re going to have dinner with your boyfriend and his parents? I want to come! And I want them to meet Jeffrey too.”

“You’re going out tonight? You and your friends should stop by Jeffrey’s strip club in Midtown; I’ll tell him to reserve a table!”

“Jeffrey and his husband are coming to stay at our house for the weekend, and I’m giving them your bedroom. Has the best view, and Lord knows my own daughter never comes to visit me!”

When I moved into my Brooklyn apartment that she so lovingly named “The Deathtrap,” my mother naturally turned to Jeffrey in my hour of need. I’ll acknowledge the apartment could be nicer. For instance, it would be cool if the building weren’t slanted to the point that a lemon resting on the kitchen counter rolls
to the floor. But alas, I’m on a budget, a budget that doesn’t allow for fancy apartments, let alone expensive moving companies. It is also located on the fourth floor of a walk-up apartment building, and my mother had asked Jeffrey to help me move my stuff up the four flights of stairs. Jeffrey really loves my mother.

When the buzzer rang, my boyfriend Jon and I climbed down the rickety steps of my new building to meet them. As soon as we opened the door, we came face-to-face with Jeffrey and my mother, leaning against a huge BuffBoyzz-branded SUV. The car was set up as a mobile billboard for his strip club: advertising
prominently displayed nude asses and barely concealed penises all over the car.

One of my new neighbors walked past the van and into the building to get her mail as Jeffrey barreled toward me, bodybuilder arms open wide in a skimpy white tank top.

“Kate, it’s so good to see you!” He hugged me and turned to Jon. “And you must be Superjew! Heard so much about you! I’m Jeffrey!” My mother had lovingly nicknamed my boyfriend “Superjew” when we started dating, because after my train wreck of an ex, a nice Jewish boy felt a lot like a hero.

“Nice to meet you, Jeffrey. You can call me Jon.” He extended a hand and smiled politely. Jeffrey ignored the handshake and pulled Jon into a bear hug against his tattooed torso, shouting over his shoulder toward my mother.

“Kim, you didn’t tell me what a little hottie the boyfriend was! Guess that’s what the
super
in Superjew is all about! Good work, Kate.”

“Do you see this dump, Jeffrey?” My mother folded
her arms and strolled over. “Look at the fire escape—they should just hang a sign: Rapists and Robbers Welcome!” She turned to me. “So, Kate, did you thank Jeffrey for pitching in?”

“Well, I was just about to! Seriously, Jeffrey, thank you
so
much for doing this. This is really incredibly nice.”

“Listen, it’s nothing. For this woman, I’d do anything!” He waved me off and jovially threw an arm around my mother.

We spent the next hour running up and down the steps, shuttling my new belongings from the strip-club-branded SUV to my apartment. People walking by on the street whipped their heads toward our X-rated spectacle, but I was more focused on the conversation Jeffrey was having with my boyfriend.

A bit of context: After five years in prison, Jeffrey, ever the entrepreneur, started building a brand-new
legal
stripper-based empire from scratch and completely turned his life around. Now he wants to expand that empire to the Internet.

“So, Jon, Kim told me you make phone apps.”

My boyfriend nodded politely. “Well, yes, I’m a developer, but I don’t typically work on that kind of thing.”

“But you
can
make apps?”

“Well, I guess I cou—”

“Oh, Jon, you must talk to Jeffrey about this.” My mother interrupted him. “I think it’s an absolutely fabulous app idea. You know, it’s important to do these things while you’re young. Before you start a family.”

Jeffrey went ahead with his pitch as we carried furniture up the very public, paper-thin-walled staircase of my building.

“So, you know how you sometimes want to hire a private dancer? And you have no idea where the closest one is to you?”

“Uh, sure.” Jon glanced at me as he answered.
No.
No, he did not. My boyfriend is possibly the most buttoned-up, straitlaced man in the United States. I don’t think he’s even met a person who has hired a private dancer. Well, except for my mother, of course.

“So, what I want to do is make an app where everyday people can find and chat with the closest stripper.
And on the app they can figure out rates and shit and then hire them.”

“I think it’s fabulous, and Jeffrey knows everything there is to know about this business. He thinks it’s going to be a hit!” My mother smiled proudly. “Jon, you’re this big computer guy…
what’s the holdup?”

“Aww, thanks, Kim!” Jeffrey turned back to Jon, after setting down a table in my apartment. “What do you think, Jon? Would you want to make the app? We could go in fifty-fifty. We could be partners on it!”

I glared at my mother and she shrugged at me, shaking her head. “What? I think it’s fabulous. Could make a lot of money! Sex sells, Kate. You and Jon need to wake up and smell the G-strings!”

After what felt like hours of moving and listening to my mother complain about Brooklyn hipsters, mason jars, and my dwindling egg supply, my thrift shop furniture had been transferred from the stripper mobile to my apartment. Jeffrey had to leave for a BuffBoyzz club night he was hosting that evening, so my mother and I halted our Clorox Wipe frenzy to say good-bye.

“Jeffrey, thank you so much, really. So sweet of you to do this.” I hugged him.

“Of course. Any time! And I’m telling you, when you finish tonight, come by the club. I’ll take care of you guys.”

“I’ll try, Jeffrey.” My mom kissed him on the cheek. “Just have to convince these two boring millennials to come out. Hopefully it’s a bachelorette party. Maybe that’ll give Superjew here some inspiration to propose to my daughter!” She looked pointedly at Jon, but he just smiled and got up to say good-bye. When asked about my mom’s outrageous antics and aggressive proposal talk directly, Jon always shrugs and says something to the effect of, “Listen, she just says what a lot of moms think but don’t actually say out loud. At least she’s up front about it.”
*
²
Jon walked Jeffrey to the door.

“Let me know if you want to do the stripper app. Could be really good. I’m telling you, it’ll be huge.” He hugged my boyfriend.

“Definitely.” Jon patted him on the back, and Jeffrey released him but then grasped his shoulder, making deliberate eye contact.

“Listen, you treat her right. Got it?”

Because if my mother isn’t a terrifying enough specter to ward off men who might be interested in dating me, now you also run the risk of incurring the wrath of my “Uncle Jeff,” a formerly incarcerated bodybuilding hunk who can be called upon at any moment to come and beat the shit out of you with a posse of ripped gay male strippers.

W
hen my Instagram account went viral, it felt surreal. I started getting emails from book publishers, and I was excited, but when I began receiving messages from shows like
Steve Harvey
and
Dr. Phil,
I couldn’t believe it.
My
mother? On television? I wanted to throw up.

When
Nightline
emailed, I actually thought it was a joke. They want
us
to come on their Peabody Award–winning, investigative journalism show?
Don’t they realize my mother will almost certainly sexually harass Dan Harris? America’s beloved anchor!

Of course, my mom was up for absolutely anything. I never worry about her being shy. I worry about whether or not she’ll try to pimp me out on live TV:
She wouldn’t ask that respected ABC
Nightline
anchor if he’s single? She did! She wouldn’t try to talk about her vagina on live Canadian television? She would! She
couldn’t possibly ask Steve Harvey to do Kegels with her on the set of his nationally syndicated talk show?! She did!
I truly never thought I’d see my mother encourage Steve Harvey to fire imaginary Kegel balls out of his fictional vagina like a cannon.

Being on this weird Internet journey with my mom has been fairly amusing, as she might be the least technologically inclined human being on the planet. Seriously, she still uses an AOL email address and calls me every time she wants to record an episode of
Scandal
. The experience has also been inspiring for me—for the last year, I’ve watched my mom unapologetically and fearlessly (let me) expose her life and opinions to hundreds of thousands of people every day. And her confidence gave me the kick in the pants I needed during one of the most nerve-wracking moments of my life:

In the spring of 2014, I decided to quit my job. This might not sound terribly scary, but I’m someone who doesn’t love change. For instance, one of the central criteria I used for choosing my current apartment was that it needed to fall inside the delivery range of the
Thai restaurant I order from four nights a week. Rental apartments change, but competitively priced Thai food is forever. I
do
love financial security and job stability, and these are not things that come with the decision to leave a corporate job with luxuries like dental plans, 401(K)s, and paychecks.

I have always dreamed about a career in writing, and because of the success of my Instagram account, I was lucky enough to have a promising opportunity to do that. But it was just that, “a promising opportunity”—not a signed contract, not even a freelance offer, it was a chance to
maybe
write a book about all the crazy antics my mother and I have gotten into over the years if, and only if, I could put together a decent book proposal.

I was working a high-stress, (more than) full-time job all day, and running four Instagram accounts at night (which is a fair amount of work in itself) and trying to write a coherent book proposal between the hours of midnight and 7 a.m. There’s a certain kind of delirious exhaustion a human body can reach where a person
fails to notice that they’ve started urinating with the toilet lid down. How do I know that? Because I peed all over a perfectly good pair of Hanky-Pankys before work one day. I didn’t think adult diapers would go over well at the office, so I knew it was time to make a decision. I also fully recognize that this is the epitome of a first-world problem—
should I quit my day job and focus on my writing?
To even be able to ask that question is a fortunate position to be in, no matter how much urine is spilled or how many panties may be ruined in the process.

So, I ovaried up, channeled my mother, and slammed my security badge on my boss’s desk shouting, “I QUIT! IT’S TIME FOR ME TO SPREAD MY WINGS AND SHARE
MY
VAGINA MONOLOGUE WITH THE WORLD, SUCKAS!!”

No, none of that happened. But on the day I officially put in my notice, I knew my mother would be proud of my decision to strike out on my own and go after my dream.

That evening, I ordered an Uber on the company
card for the last time and pulled off my workplace control tops in the backseat. I texted my mom from the Brooklyn Bridge, a little anxious but mostly excited to tell her the news. I wanted to thank her, because she was the reason I had the courage to take this risk:

Not exactly how I hoped the conversation would go. I didn’t even have a chance to call her, because my phone began ringing.

“I can’t talk now, Kate!”
You called to tell me you can’t talk?
“Your father and I are painting the basement for when you have to move back home, you MILLENNIAL!!!!!”

“Mom, just listen.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of your rent checks bouncing!”

“MOM! You’re the one who always tells me I should be writing! This is my chance to go for it!”

“Yeah, go for it, but with health insurance and a gym membership!”

I imagined what my mother would do if she were in my situation. Would the woman who moved out to LA at twenty-six without a driver’s license, a job, or a place to live in order to pursue her dream of becoming a TV director/porn writer give up now? Would she hijack this Uber and speed to her boss’s office, begging for her job back? No, she’d believe in herself and freeball it over the bridge to her new adventure. Unemployment, here I come!

By the time I got back to Brooklyn, my mom was on board too, singing, “I am woman, hear me roar!” She texted me:

This turned out to be a lie, as I wrote a lot of this book sipping cold brew iced coffee in a Brooklyn shop just
bursting
with man buns.

Yes, this is how my mother thinks hashtags work, and I pray that no one ever corrects her.

In retrospect, I’m not sure what the hell I was thinking. I had a modicum of Internet notoriety and a dream
to be sure, but also no idea how I was going to pay my rent that month. So, we’ll see how this next chapter of my life goes, but I know that if I am even a tiny fraction of the fearless, badass person my mother is, I’ll be okay. And besides, if things ever get really rough, I can always follow in my mom’s footsteps and write porn.