The Grinch Rides Again Transcript
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Mary Gaitskill - The Grinch Rides Again
Thank you. In August of 2012, I was separated from my husband and I was in humongous debt, like 66k of it. I'd just taken a job teaching at a college in Geneva, New York, way upstate. It was a temporary job that came with a furnished house, and so I decided to give up the rental home I'd shared with my husband, put all my stuff in a storage locker and save some money. My last night in my hometown was spent at a motel with a boyfriend of three months. We broke up that night when I literally ran out of the motel, fled to another motel, drove up to the bucolic college town the next day, where I arrived in a pretty bad mood. [audience laughter]
My first social experience was a cocktail party held to welcome me at which I was so testy and weird that I alienated, I'd say, three people, including the head of the department, who would engage me in a conversation about Madame Bovary, [audience laughter] which she seemed to think was a book about a very bad mother. [audience laughter] Excuse me, they didn't have birth control then, she didn't want the kid. At which point the head of the department is looking at me like, [audience laughter] “This is the person we brought here to guide our young, impressionable students? Can we send her back?”
But I actually liked the students. They were nice. I liked some of the faculty. I was friendly with the people across the street in the science department. They had these two cute kids, Laurel, eight, and Rose, six. But it was hard to connect with such a close-knit community, which was so much about families. It didn't help that I was in a state of grief about my marriage still. It also didn't help that my husband was about to publish a book, a memoir about our marriage, [audience laughter] which he said that no one would know was about our marriage, [audience laughter] because he had not named me by my name, but instead was referring to me as F, [audience laughter] a pseudonym behind which I would be so hidden.
Plus, I was working on a novel, which is a cocooning experience that doesn't exactly foster community bonding. As part of writing on this novel, I had to do research on riding and handling horses, which sounds like fun, except the horse that I was learning with up there was a very crabby animal named Buzz, who would stamp menacingly when I groomed him. Stamp when I put the saddle on him, fight the bit, shove me when I tightened his girth. The trainer was like, “You're being too nice. His owner's a real bitch. He's used to a heavy hand.” [audience laughter] “Okay.” [audience laughter] So, it was teach, ride, jump, ride angry horse. Teach, ride, jump, angry horse. [audience laughter]
For fun, [audience laughter] I drank and watched TV, [audience laughter] because I didn't have cable. I went for CNN, mostly depressing or just irritating news stories endlessly recycled, which I intercut with a show called Criminal Minds, [audience laughter] which was about horrible crimes solved by the FBI heroes who did incredibly complex psychological profiling which led to them always closing in on the killer at the end of the show as he hovered over his cringing victim, shouting, “Drop the gun. We know what you're going through.”
So, one day in late November, I'm coming home to my house, and I see in the yard this beautiful spreading branch tree. There's an envelope in it and I think, a message for me? I eagerly reach for the envelope, which is addressed to The Grinch. On top of everything else, somebody's calling me a Grinch? Why? I open it and read, “Dear Grinch, you're probably at the Whos right now having a good time. We're having a good time too getting ready for Christmas. This year, I would like a beauty bar station, so I hope you can get it for me. Thank you ahead of time, Merry Christmas, Laurel.” Okay, the little girl across the street. [audience laughter]
I call her mother, Nan, to tell her about the letter, and she explains to me the family Grinch lore. She had read how the Grinch Stole Christmas to Laurel when she was three and the child had fallen in love with the bilious protagonist who returned her love with a pair of sparkly pink slippers, a decadent Christmas present that mama had already said no to. The lore had somehow expanded to involve the Grinch living in an invisible encampment in my yard across the street [audience laughter] which is probably why Laurel thought he would get the letter left in the tree.
Although the Grinch had given Laurel and Rose Christmas presents every year since the reading of the sacred text, [audience laughter] Laurel had never before written a letter to him, and Nan wasn't sure why she had this year. “Huh,” I said. “Is it okay if I write back to Laurel as the Grinch?” “Well, sure,” said Nan. “That sounds like fun. I'm sure she'll write back to you.” So, I eagerly tore a page from my notebook and wrote in it, “Hey, Laurel, [audience laughter] it's a Grinch. I'm not at the Whos anymore, because we had a fight and I'm back to hating Christmas, so I'm spending it in my dark cave with my winged assistance. But even though I hate Christmas, I still like you. So, I'm considering your request. [audience laughter] You're a friend of a Grinch.” [audience laughter]
I put the letter in the tree and eagerly awaited a reply which did not come. Nan said she read the letter over Laurel's shoulder and that the child seemed quite stony about it. [audience laughter] She didn't even want to talk about it. I started to apologize. And Nan said, “No. No, it's okay. She's at the age where she's realizing that relationships change, and [audience laughter] sometimes not for the better. I'm sure she'll write back to you.” But she did not. I checked the tree every day. I was honestly hurt, [audience laughter] but I was also surprised. I thought, come on, little girl, it's a Grinch. You got to let a Grinch be a Grinch. Still no letter.
I had dinner with the family a couple times, dropped by for Thanksgiving, watched Laurel dance in the Nutcracker Ballet. Had a good time. But I did notice that the child was looking a little pale and sour. And that one night, she even snapped at her father after he'd praised she and Rose for something, “Dad, stop acting like we're so great. We're not, and you know it.” Well, Christmas came and went. I spent it in Chicago with my sister and her kids, came back, worked on my novel, rode bus, was reassured almost every night by the FBI [audience laughter] that no matter what we know what you're going through.
Eventually, I got together with Nan and asked if the Grinch had at least come through with the beauty bar, and she said “Yes, he had.” But when they sat down to watch the cartoon, and Rose was rhapsodically recapping about how happy and loving the Grinch was, Laurel just sat there looking sick, like she knew the truth and it was on her to protect her sister's innocence. I expressed surprise that Laurel had taken it quite so hard. And that's when Nan told me that there had been some trouble between her and her husband that year and a lot of tension around the house, which the kids had picked up on and that had been right around the time when Laurel wrote the letter to the Grinch, and she thought that's probably why she was so upset that he and the Whos had broken up.
Nan, being a calm person and an experienced parent, felt pretty sure that this could be taken in stride, but I was not. I thought this is awful. This charade has taken a turn for the worst. [audience laughter] I got to write another letter. And I did. This time, not from the Grinch. “Dear Laurel, this is the Grinch's winged assistant, 002, second in command. The Grinch is wondering if you received the Beauty Bar and if you liked it. And just between you and me, Laurel, he thinks you might be angry at him over his quarrel with the Whos. He knows he is in the wrong, but he doesn't know how to apologize. Please send us your prayers and good wishes. I am confident that that would help.”
Now, because we were well into January and I didn't want Laurel to think the Grinch had forgotten her for so long, I distressed the letter and basically acted like I'd found it in the yard where it probably fell out of the tree. Went over across the street and said, “Laurel, I found this letter. It seems to be to you from somebody named a winged assistant. Do you know anything about this?” There was a letter in the tree the next day. “Well, nobody likes to apologize, but I'm sure if he did, the Whos would forgive him right away. They are so nice.”
To which the winged assistant replied, “Well, you see, Laurel, when a person's heart grows as fast and as large as the Grinch’s did on that Christmas so many years ago, well, it can be quite sensitive, and vulnerable and easily hurt even by well-meaning Whos. It might help if you could offer him some encouragement. He cares a lot about what you think.” Again, let her tree the next morning. “I'd like to encourage him, but it might help if I knew what the fight was about.” [audience laughter] “Well, you see, Laurel, the Whos were getting ready for Christmas early like they always do. And the Grinch was especially excited about a special present he'd gotten his favorite little Who girl. He was in the corner wrapping it and the child came running up and said, ‘Is that for me?’ She saw it and the surprise was ruined. And the Grinch was so upset that he snarled at the child, and she burst into tears and ran away from him.
The Grinch was mortified and he slunk back to his room where he planned to stay for the rest of the night, but a kindly Who mother who'd seen the whole thing knocked on the door and entreated him to come out, which he did. He tried to make it right by smiling at the child, but because he was so embarrassed and felt so bad, the smile came out all wrong, like a horrible leer with teeth and everything. The kid just burst into tears again. This was too much for the Grinch. He fled back to his room where he summoned his winged assistant and made an escape out the window back to the cave, where he sulks to this day. He is not sure if he can't even smile correctly in a way that people can understand if he can ever be good again.”
Maybe it was the very large glass of wine I was drinking. [audience laughter] Maybe it was the beautiful snowfall that night, but I got strangely emotional writing this letter, so much so that I didn't realize until I went out to put the letter in the tree that I couldn't put it in the tree because of the heavy snowfall which would cause footprints to be walking up and back and give away the whole thing.
The dramatic frustration of this was heightened the next day when I saw a Laurel outside at the foot of the tree examining some animal tracks. “It's the winged assistant.” She cried to her sister across the street. “But he didn't leave anything in the tree. Something must be wrong.” Which meant that I spent a good part of that day going from store to store looking for the longest barbecue tongs I could find, [audience laughter] which meant that after midnight, after the snowplows had banked the snow, I was out there clutching the letter and the tongs.
It was a beautiful night, very clear, starry with the heavy snow weighing down the branches of all the trees, including my tree, the magic Grinch tree, which, as I approached it, sweeping up my tracks with a small pine bough. [audience laughter] I realized this was important to me. I was still alone in a strange place. I was still in pretty serious debt and I had no idea where I was going to go after this, but right then, I was really loving being the secret Grinch pen pal of this little girl across the street. I felt real joy and reaching up with the tongs to get the letter in the tree. And I felt even more joy when I read the letter the next day.
“I think it was really brave of you to smile when you didn't feel like it. I know because I do it sometimes and it's hard. If you can do that, you can still be good. Love, Laurel. In other words, you may be a big old Grinch and I might be a little eight-year-old girl, but still, I know what you're going through.” Thank you.