Ruby Cooper - Giving and Receiving

 

 

After a year of him badgering me, I gave in. Parked on a dark country road in my mom's 1959 Dodge with a push button transmission and a backseat, as big as a double bed, [audience laughter] I had sex with my boyfriend. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

He was happy. [audience laughter] Me, not so much. I wasn't going to do it again. [audience laughter] What I didn't know is that I had gotten pregnant. Yeah, [audience laughter] with twins. [audience laughter] It was 1960, and I was 16. [audience laughter] Six and a half months later, I gave birth to two little boys. Only one survived, but he spent the next three months in a preemie bin, struggling to live alone while I watched him through a murky plate glass window, because they never allowed me touch him. When I finally got him out of there, I thought, I'm never going to let this kid get away from me again. 

 

A few months later, when he was 10 months old, through a routine visit with the pediatrician, he said, “This kid has cerebral palsy. He'll never walk or probably won't talk. You know, I'll give you're young, you can have more children. I'll give you the name of a place where you can take him where he'll be with others of his kind.” And I was stunned. I said, “His kind? I'm his mom. I'm his kind. He's going home with me.” [audience cheers and applause] 

 

Kirk, he’s was beautiful, beautiful baby with these great big green, blue, just hazel come out, almond shaped eyes and possibly long eyelashes and a big smile. He grew into this gregarious, confident kid that just everybody was attracted to. On his first day of school, I think he was seven years old and he was in a little wheelchair. I pushed him down the hallway and he goes, “Hi. I, Kirk. Hi. I, Kirk.” Like, he was running for office. [audience laughter] He lost his first tooth. And I said, “Oh, what will happen is that put the tooth under the pillow and the fairy will come at night and exchange it for money.” 

 

He looked at me like I was crazy. [audience laughter] And he said, “No, mine bring pie.” [audience laughter] “Pie? [audience laughter] The tooth fairy doesn't have pie. [audience laughter] The tooth fairy has money.” He said, “Mine bring pie.” [audience laughter] And I said, “What kind of pie?” [audience laughter] And he said, “Chocolate.” And the following morning, the tooth fairy from the local bakery had delivered a chocolate pie. [audience laughter] 

 

Kirk loved to swim, loved the water. And so, I would put the little Mae West out thingy on him, the vest, and I would jam him into a tractor trailer inner tube and tie a rope on it. Hey, I was a single mother, a teenage mother. Think about that. I would drop him into any body of water, and he could paddle around and [audience laughter] I could pull him in with a rope. [audience laughter] 

 

Listen, [audience laughter] nothing happened to him, for God's sake. [audience laughter] And so, one time, we were on a little lake in my friend's ski boat. He was watching the ski us, there were just two women in him and girls, teenagers. And finally, he just had enough of it and he said, “I want to ski.” We looked at each other and said, “Why not?” [audience laughter] 

 

So, we dropped him over [audience laughter] the back of the boat. Janie's driving. She drove along real slow. He's having a really good time and laughing. And then, she revved it up and he's just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Just having a great time. We got back to the beach and this, I don't know, big old paunchy, red-faced guy stomped over there to us and said, “I saw you out there with that baby, just pulling it along. You endangered his life and I should have the authorities come and take him away from you.” And I said, “Fuck you. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

We're just having fun.” And Kirk said, “Yeah, [audience laughter] and you're no fun at all.” Well, Kirk grew into a young man. When he was 22 years old, I moved him into a group home close by where we lived in California. He met a bunch of five, six guys that had different varying disabilities. They would spend their time just talking and hanging out. And most of the conversation was about girls and how to meet them, about sex. I would come and visit, and they would come up with these schemes for me to get involved in. And I said, “No, no, not at all. I am not. No” and I would leave and go home and forget about it. 

 

And that year, about a couple months before Christmas, I called Kirk and I said, “Hey, your sisters and I are wondering-- Christmas is coming up and we're wondering if there's anything special that you would like to have for Christmas.” [audience laughter] And he said, “I want to have sex.” [audience laughter] I said, “Sex? Sex is not a Christmas present. [audience laughter] Videos, and stinky cologne, and sweaters and shit you don't need. That's Christmas. Sex? It's illegal. [audience laughter] I can't buy. I could go to jail. You could get a disease. It's not a good idea, Kirk. No.”

 

When I finished ranting, I said, “You know what? I don't even know where I would look for it. I have no idea about this, Kirk.” And he said, “You could find it, mama.” [audience laughter] So, [audience laughter] I talked to my friends. [audience laughter] My friend Janie, who was a bartender, put a big pickle jar on the bar that said, “Get Kirk sex fund.” [audience laughter] I got to tell you, that jar filled with paper money so fast you wouldn't believe it, [audience laughter] because that is a cause that men believe in. [audience laughter] [audience applause]

 

I looked everywhere. I could have gotten picked up, because I looked at all of the women, everybody at any bus stop, trying. And I thought, no, no. Nobody knew anybody. I didn't know how to do this. And finally, I remembered that my friend-- I had a friend named Bill. He was a manager of the Onslow Hotel in Reno, Nevada. [audience laughter] Yeah. So, I called him and told him what Kirk wanted for Christmas. And he said, “Hell yeah. Bring him up here.” He said, “I'll take him to the Mustang Ranch.” 

 

The Mustang Ranch, by the way, is the oldest brothel in the United States of America in Sparks, Nevada. It is just a good run place from what I heard. [audience laughter] And he said, “As a matter of fact, bring the whole family. [audience laughter] I'll give you family rates at the hotel and we'll have Christmas dinner at my place.” I said, okay. So, I tell Kirk. He's excited, he can't stand it. I said, “Now, we got to call my mother.” Because my mother lived in Pennsylvania and spent Christmas holiday with us. She's a little old fashioned, kind of girl. [audience laughter] I didn't know how this would go over. And so, I said, kirk, “You tell her.” [audience laughter] 

 

So, as soon as she answered the phone, he said, “Grandma, you got to come to Reno for Christmas.” And she said, “Oh, Reno, why honey, are we going to Reno?” And he said, “Because I'm going to have sex, grandma.” [audience laughter] And there was a silence. And I thought, “Should she faint it?” No. But she didn't. She rallied. She said, “Isn't that nice? [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause]

 

How much does it cost?” [audience laughter] And I said, “I don't know, ma. They don't give quotes over the phone.” [audience laughter] So, she said, “Well, put me down for 50 [audience laughter] to love my mother.” [audience cheers and applause]

 

So, on Christmas Eve day, FYI, the Mustang Ranch closed on Christmas day, in case you need to know. [audience laughter] But on Christmas Eve day, we were at the hotel, his sisters got him all bathed and primped and powdered up like he was like a bride. [audience laughter] We drove over to Bill's. My mother goes into the kitchen to start the turkey and so stuff for-- Bill and Kirk go heading out to the Mustang Ranch in about an hour and a half, I don't know, I wasn't counting, but not too long. I hear them outside, coming up, laughing. 

 

And Kirk, when he left, his muscles were so tight, and he was so nervous and full of anxiety and scared. Now, when I open the door, he's just laying in his wheelchair, looking like Gumby, [audience laughter] with this big smile on his face. And I said, “Wow, back already?” And he goes, “She was real nervous.” [audience laughter] I just laughed and gave him this great big hug and I said, “Hey, guys, you know, everybody, I have a bottle of champagne. I think we should have a Christmas toast to the Christmas spirit, to family, to friends, to giving and receiving.”