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Night at the Mall
by Stephanie Kemp
Night at the Mall
by Stephanie Kemp
Part I
It is going to be the best day ever, in the history of my nine years of life.
Not only do I get to go to the world wide opening of the Fairlane Town Center Mall (almost across the street from Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village — maybe we can also drive a Model T and make candles!), but I get to SLEEP OVER AT THE NEW HYATT REGENCY HOTEL THAT IS ATTACHED TO THE MALL after a day of shopping for new pants with my mom! (Even the fact that my sisters also get to come can’t ruin this day…)
As if this weren’t enough, my mom just told me that our family friend, Hallie, and her mom are also coming with us and that we will ALL GET TO SHARE A ROOM! (Even the fact that Hallie gets to be the little sister of three older brothers while I am stuck between two sisters can’t ruin this day…)
They have been working on the mall for a long time. (The mall also has something to do with Henry Ford. I wonder if we will get special treatment at the mall and the hotel because my Grandpa is a Ford dealer? I wonder if I should tell everyone about this, in case they don’t know?)
There is an ice skating rink!
A movie theatre!
A JC Penney where I will buy several pairs of fancy corduroy bell bottoms with rivets!
A monorail that will take us through the sky from the mall to the fancy hotel!
The hotel is all glass!
It is shaped like a Pillsbury crescent roll!
There is a revolving restaurant on the top floor for the moms to have fancy cocktails!
A helicopter landing pad!
Room Service!
(Room service with no MOMS!)
A thing called Pay per View where you can choose your own movie!
I will get to choose the movie…
BECAUSE I LOVE MOVIES!
(Especially movies with no MOMS!)
Part II
It is a good thing that we are staying at the hotel because I forgot how much I hate shopping (and I am a terrible ice skater). My legs are tired and I already hate my new corduroys because an hour after I got them my older sister got Levi corduroys at Sears in brown, tan, light blue and rust. This will be the first thing of this day that will permanently change me:
I.
Will.
Only.
Wear.
Levi’s.
Forever.
Another thing that will change me is when I hear someone saying something about Henry Ford that makes me glad I didn’t tell anyone about my Grandpa. I will forget about this for a really, really long time until I grow up and marry my husband, who is Jewish.
But the biggest way I will change that day will be after we are done shopping, and after the Moms leave us in the hotel room by ourselves, and after I eat too many French fries and the rest of Hallie’s cheeseburger and most of my little sister’s ice cream sundae.
After I pick the movie.
Now, to be honest, there weren’t a lot of good options on the hotel TV. We were all disappointed.
FANTASIA felt like our best bet, even though I had already seen it. My sisters were on board and so was Hallie (especially because she always had to watch boy movies because of all of those brothers). Plus we were all pretty tired and felt sort of sick from too much room service on top of too much free popcorn and candy from our day at the mall.
But then the worst thing happened.
I must have been really tired and really full, because FANTASIA was actually a movie called FANTASM, and it. was. not. a. Disney. movie.
(I thought it must be a new version of FANTASIA that wasn’t a cartoon, didn’t have Mickey Mouse and was going to be hosted by a German narrator.)
I was excited.
We watched it.
All of it.
FANTASM, starring John Holmes and Candy Samples.
Rated X.
German psychiatrist Professor Jungenot A. Freud takes the audience through a series of female sexual fantasies including:
• Sex in a beauty salon
• Fruit fetishism
• Lesbianism in a sauna
• Teacher student seduction
• Rape in a gym
• Transvestism
• Reverse Oedipus complex (Electra complex)
With my sisters and Hallie watching too, while no one was talking, or moving.
Or breathing.
Part III
I don’t remember anything after this, except that I never went back to the Fairlane Town Center or the New Hyatt Regency again.
I don’t remember ever talking about it with my sisters or Hallie (who we only saw one more time — by parental force — over a Thanksgiving break) or with my mom or anyone else.
Ever.
I do remember feeling sad, scared, numb, tingly, confused, furious, anxious, embarrassed, guilty and ashamed.
I remember looking at boys (and girls and women and men and movies and teachers and bodies and myself) differently.
I also remember thinking that if we never talked about it, I could hold onto the thought that maybe my sisters and Hallie were asleep the whole time.
Especially during the gym scene.
A few months later, I got in trouble for something else (I don’t remember what), and my mom explained to me the difference between guilt and shame:
GUILT means : “I did something bad.”
SHAME means: “I am bad.”
She told me this to make me feel better, but it didn’t work, because I still felt both. (But not because of the thing I did that I can’t remember.)
This is what can happen when you accidentally watch a porn movie when you are nine with your sisters and a former family friend.
This is also why I never let my daughters pick the movie in a hotel room unless I am with them, (even though they can watch anything, anytime, anywhere, by accident or on purpose, alone or with anyone else, always)…
And with that — here I sit, 46 years later — not breathing again, still hating malls while wearing only Levi’s and making sure my daughters know the difference between guilt and shame.
It is going to be the best day ever, in the history of my nine years of life.
Not only do I get to go to the world wide opening of the Fairlane Town Center Mall (almost across the street from Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village — maybe we can also drive a Model T and make candles!), but I get to SLEEP OVER AT THE NEW HYATT REGENCY HOTEL THAT IS ATTACHED TO THE MALL after a day of shopping for new pants with my mom! (Even the fact that my sisters also get to come can’t ruin this day…)
As if this weren’t enough, my mom just told me that our family friend, Hallie, and her mom are also coming with us and that we will ALL GET TO SHARE A ROOM! (Even the fact that Hallie gets to be the little sister of three older brothers while I am stuck between two sisters can’t ruin this day…)
They have been working on the mall for a long time. (The mall also has something to do with Henry Ford. I wonder if we will get special treatment at the mall and the hotel because my Grandpa is a Ford dealer? I wonder if I should tell everyone about this, in case they don’t know?)
There is an ice skating rink!
A movie theatre!
A JC Penney where I will buy several pairs of fancy corduroy bell bottoms with rivets!
A monorail that will take us through the sky from the mall to the fancy hotel!
The hotel is all glass!
It is shaped like a Pillsbury crescent roll!
There is a revolving restaurant on the top floor for the moms to have fancy cocktails!
A helicopter landing pad!
Room Service!
(Room service with no MOMS!)
A thing called Pay per View where you can choose your own movie!
I will get to choose the movie…
BECAUSE I LOVE MOVIES!
(Especially movies with no MOMS!)
Part II
It is a good thing that we are staying at the hotel because I forgot how much I hate shopping (and I am a terrible ice skater). My legs are tired and I already hate my new corduroys because an hour after I got them my older sister got Levi corduroys at Sears in brown, tan, light blue and rust. This will be the first thing of this day that will permanently change me:
I.
Will.
Only.
Wear.
Levi’s.
Forever.
Another thing that will change me is when I hear someone saying something about Henry Ford that makes me glad I didn’t tell anyone about my Grandpa. I will forget about this for a really, really long time until I grow up and marry my husband, who is Jewish.
But the biggest way I will change that day will be after we are done shopping, and after the Moms leave us in the hotel room by ourselves, and after I eat too many French fries and the rest of Hallie’s cheeseburger and most of my little sister’s ice cream sundae.
After I pick the movie.
Now, to be honest, there weren’t a lot of good options on the hotel TV. We were all disappointed.
FANTASIA felt like our best bet, even though I had already seen it. My sisters were on board and so was Hallie (especially because she always had to watch boy movies because of all of those brothers). Plus we were all pretty tired and felt sort of sick from too much room service on top of too much free popcorn and candy from our day at the mall.
But then the worst thing happened.
I must have been really tired and really full, because FANTASIA was actually a movie called FANTASM, and it. was. not. a. Disney. movie.
(I thought it must be a new version of FANTASIA that wasn’t a cartoon, didn’t have Mickey Mouse and was going to be hosted by a German narrator.)
I was excited.
We watched it.
All of it.
FANTASM, starring John Holmes and Candy Samples.
Rated X.
German psychiatrist Professor Jungenot A. Freud takes the audience through a series of female sexual fantasies including:
• Sex in a beauty salon
• Fruit fetishism
• Lesbianism in a sauna
• Teacher student seduction
• Rape in a gym
• Transvestism
• Reverse Oedipus complex (Electra complex)
With my sisters and Hallie watching too, while no one was talking, or moving.
Or breathing.
Part III
I don’t remember anything after this, except that I never went back to the Fairlane Town Center or the New Hyatt Regency again.
I don’t remember ever talking about it with my sisters or Hallie (who we only saw one more time — by parental force — over a Thanksgiving break) or with my mom or anyone else.
Ever.
I do remember feeling sad, scared, numb, tingly, confused, furious, anxious, embarrassed, guilty and ashamed.
I remember looking at boys (and girls and women and men and movies and teachers and bodies and myself) differently.
I also remember thinking that if we never talked about it, I could hold onto the thought that maybe my sisters and Hallie were asleep the whole time.
Especially during the gym scene.
A few months later, I got in trouble for something else (I don’t remember what), and my mom explained to me the difference between guilt and shame:
GUILT means : “I did something bad.”
SHAME means: “I am bad.”
She told me this to make me feel better, but it didn’t work, because I still felt both. (But not because of the thing I did that I can’t remember.)
This is what can happen when you accidentally watch a porn movie when you are nine with your sisters and a former family friend.
This is also why I never let my daughters pick the movie in a hotel room unless I am with them, (even though they can watch anything, anytime, anywhere, by accident or on purpose, alone or with anyone else, always)…
And with that — here I sit, 46 years later — not breathing again, still hating malls while wearing only Levi’s and making sure my daughters know the difference between guilt and shame.