Ask Marlowe: Sexual Healing

Advice for people who already know the answer and don’t like it

By Philip Marlowe

People don’t write advice columnists because they want guidance. They write because the walls are closing in and everyone else is telling them to smile. I read their letters late at night, when the city’s honest and the gin gimlets melt in my mouth faster than other people’s flimsy excuses. There are eight million suppositories in the naked city, none of which melt in my mouth. Here are a few of them.

Dear Marlowe,

I like this boy name of Archie. Archie Andrews. Red hair and freckles. I’ve been pursuing him since 1941 and, gee whiz, I don’t know what to think. Sometimes he likes me, sometimes he likes my frenemy Veronica Lodge, who’s rich, snobby and has an identical face to mine except that she’s a brunette and I’m a blonde. Thing is, neither one of us has ever gotten past second base with him. Sometimes we try to make him jealous by dating Reggie Mantle, who thinks he’s God’s gift to bobby soxers, but heavy petting is as far as even he will go. You think maybe these guys are light in the sneakers? Our other options here at Riverdale are Jughead, Big Moose and Dilton Doiley, but golly, I think I’d rather do Pop Tate or Mr. Weatherbee. What do I have to do to get some action around here?

Sick to death of always being the good girl, Betty Cooper

Marlowe replies:

Kid, Riverdale isn’t a town — it’s a snow globe. Somebody shook it in 1941 and forgot to put it down. You’re all trapped inside, smiling through the glass while nothing changes.

Archie doesn’t choose between you and Veronica because choosing would mean time passes. He isn’t gay, straight or confused — he’s embalmed. Same goes for Reggie and the rest of the soda-fountain Greeks. Second base is as far as the censors let them drive.

As for Pop Tate and Mr. Weatherbee — that’s not desire, that’s claustrophobia talking. At least Mr. Lodge has hair. But no. That would be a very bad idea as well.

Here’s the hard truth: if you want action, you’ll have to leave the page. Get out of town. Grow older than nineteen. When you come back — if you come back — Archie will still be there, same sweater, same smile, still waiting for permission to live.

Dear Marlowe,

The “Professor” and I have been marooned on a tropical island with a small cast of zany but mostly lovable types since what was to have been a three-hour tour in a tiny ship manned by a mighty sailin’ man and a skipper, brave and sure, was tossed by rough weather and wound up aground on the shore of the uncharted isle from which I am writing this on coconut bark with a pointy stick.

The sexual chemistry between the Professor and me is undeniable — has been for years — but the problem is that even with his shirt perpetually (and provocatively) unbuttoned, he seems to be more interested in the chemistry part than the sex stuff. This intellectual/wholesome pairing is driving me batty and making my grass skirt itch. Any ideas on how I can awaken his manly yearning without having it spill over to that slutty, fake-eyelashed movie star I have to share a hut with? (And for goodness sake, why would anyone bring along endless cosmetics and glamorous evening gowns for a three-hour tour, a three-hour tour, in the first place?)

What Betty said, Mary Ann

Marlowe replies:

Honey, you’re stranded with a man who can build a generator out of seashells and still can’t locate his own pulse. The Professor doesn’t lack desire — he has just rerouted it into blueprints and footnotes.

You could turn that grass skirt into a suggestion instead of a garment and he’d still be thinking about polymers. And the movie star? She’s a prop. He looks at her the way a dentist looks at a drill — useful, noisy and not romantic. Lovey, the millionaire’s wife? Now, she’s a peach. Ruff, ruff! But that’s just my opinion.

My advice is simple: stop trying to awaken him. He’s awake. He just prefers thinking to touching. There’s a skipper and a sailor on that island who understand the difference. If the Professor ever figures it out, let him do the math alone.

Dear Marlowe,

I can’t give you my last name, but let’s just say I’m the host of a popular variety show that airs Sunday nights on a major television network. My problem is that I seem to be falling, ass over teakettle, for a little Italian mouse. It started with goodnight kisses every time he’s on the show (she? it? they? I don’t even know what pronoun to use, which is unusual considering that I’m stuck in 1968). In any case, now I want something more. Something primal. Verminous. I want to run my bony hands all over that little rodent body the way the foot-juggling Baranton Sisters and the diabolo-mastering Three Hermannis can manipulate knives, flaming torches and chainsaws. Give me the straight goods, detective. Considering my feelings, was it hypocritical for me to insist that the Rolling Stones drop that provocative line about spending the night together?

Really big shoe, Eddie

Marlowe replies:

Pal, you don’t want the mouse. You want what the mouse represents — safety, applause and a lover who can’t ask for anything back. That’s not romance. That’s insulation.

You made the Stones clean up their lyrics because desire scares you when it’s honest. You’d rather dress it up as family entertainment and sneak a kiss in the wings.

Was it hypocritical? Sure. But hypocrisy is the house uniform where you work. My advice: either loosen your tie and let the mess show, or keep kissing the mouse and pretending it means something. Just don’t confuse control with morality. They only look alike in black and white.

Dear Marlowe,

I’ve been in love with the same man since about the time you resisted a romantic connection with Anne Riordan in Farewell, My Lovely. He’s the tall, dark and silent type. Always puts his work first, and I’ve always respected him for that. He’s been a bit blue, though, ever since his deputy, Chester, rode off into the sunset and was replaced by a disgusting old tramp named Festus. Sometimes when my beloved is sitting forlornly in my saloon, alone after Doc has drunk himself into his usual stupor in the next chair, I catch him thinking of Chester and muttering into his beer: “Hey, you, get off of McCloud.” Must I resign myself to slinging drinks and saying “Be careful, Matt!” for the rest of my career?

Never Getting out of Dodge, Miss Kitty

Marlowe replies:

Kitty, men like Matt Dillon don’t belong to people. They belong to places. Dodge City owns him the way the desert owns the dust.

Chester leaving didn’t take a deputy — it took innocence. Festus is just the bill that came due. You’re the one constant he allows himself, because you don’t ask him to stop being what he is.

Will he ever walk out of that office and into your arms for good? No. But don’t sell short what you have. Some love stories don’t end. They just keep watch. In endless reruns.

Dear Marlowe,

Gumshoe, you have to help me before I do something so rash and impetuous that Richie and Joanie will never forgive me. My husband Howard, God love him, is boring as butter. And about as soft. Everyone seems to think I have something flirtatious going on with Arthur Fonzarelli, the brash hood in the leather jacket who all the kids down at Arnold’s Drive-In think is the cat’s meow. But the awful truth is that it’s Richie’s friend Ralph Malph who makes me, well, all squishy inside. He’s a ginger (everywhere) like a real-life Archie Andrews, only with fewer lines. Last night I dreamed about becoming a “throuple” with him and Potsie Weber. As our theme song incoherently says, “Feel so right, can’t be wrong.” But is it wrong?

Sunday Monday Happy Daze, Marion Cunningham

Marlowe replies:

Mrs. C., boredom is dangerous because it whispers instead of shouts. Howard’s softness isn’t a crime — it’s just not exciting. The Fonz is a cardboard cutout with good lighting.

Ralph and Potsie make you feel young because they don’t know who they are yet. Look beyond the whoopie cushions, joy buzzers and spring-loaded eyeball glasses. Notwithstanding Ralph’s moronic catchphrase (“I still got it!”), he never had it in the first place.

That dream you had wasn’t about sex. It was about escape, laughter and being seen without being responsible. But responsibility doesn’t disappear just because the theme song says it’s OK.

Is it wrong? Let me put it this way: fantasies are free. Acting on them costs everybody. If the bill includes Richie, Joanie or the part of you that still wants to sleep at night, then fold the dream up and put it away. And whatever you do, don’t let Fonzie strap on some waterskis and jump a shark while wearing that stupid jacket. Dumbest idea in TV history.

Unless you count allowing Maddie and David to finally consummate their smouldering relationship on Moonlighting.

That’s the mail, folks. If you don’t like the answers, don’t worry — neither did the people who needed them most.

Write to: Philip Marlowe, Private Investigations 2317 West 8th Street Los Angeles, California

Cash preferred. Truth guaranteed.